var="${red}howdy${nrm}" # '$(red}' is just a color code, no
problem there.
print -l $var
eval "print -l $var"
... shows:
howdy
(eval):1: bad pattern: ^[[31
... Is there a way to feed color codes to eval? Seems to me I
remember that there's some ${(?) var} ... some flag in there that
does it.