— Function: g-shell-quote (unquoted_string mchars) ⇒  (ret mchars)

Quotes a string so that the shell (/bin/sh) will interpret the quoted string to mean unquoted-string. If you pass a filename to the shell, for example, you should first quote it with this function. The return value must be freed with g-free. The quoting style used is undefined (single or double quotes may be used).

unquoted-string

a literal string

ret

quoted string

— Function: g-shell-unquote (quoted_string mchars) ⇒  (ret mchars)

Unquotes a string as the shell (/bin/sh) would. Only handles quotes; if a string contains file globs, arithmetic operators, variables, backticks, redirections, or other special-to-the-shell features, the result will be different from the result a real shell would produce (the variables, backticks, etc. will be passed through literally instead of being expanded). This function is guaranteed to succeed if applied to the result of g-shell-quote. If it fails, it returns ‘#f’ and sets the error. The quoted-string need not actually contain quoted or escaped text; g-shell-unquote simply goes through the string and unquotes/unescapes anything that the shell would. Both single and double quotes are handled, as are escapes including escaped newlines. The return value must be freed with g-free. Possible errors are in the <g-shell-error> domain.

Shell quoting rules are a bit strange. Single quotes preserve the literal string exactly. escape sequences are not allowed; not even \' - if you want a ' in the quoted text, you have to do something like 'foo'\”bar'. Double quotes allow $, `, ", \, and newline to be escaped with backslash. Otherwise double quotes preserve things literally.

quoted-string

shell-quoted string

error

error return location or NULL

ret

an unquoted string