NAME

unquote — execute a program with safely quoted arguments

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The unquote utility executes command with the specified arguments after unquoting the specified fields. The fields argument, which may be specified in various ways, is a colon-delimited list of numbers, following the Unix/C convention that command is argument 0, args starting from 1. Each argument in the list is interpreted as a hex-encoded string, with two hex digits for each character.

The list of arguments to be quoted is constructed in the following way:

• The environment variable UNQUOTE_ARGS is examined, and if it is set, the string it contains is parsed as a fields list.
• Any -f arguments are parsed and added to the (possibly empty) list, not replacing any of its contents.
• The first non-option argument, fields, is examined, and also added to the (possibly empty) list, not replacing any of its contents.

The following options are available:

-0

If -n is also specified, separate arguments in the output with ASCII NUL characters (character code 0). This option cannot be used at the same time as -N.

-f fields

Specify a list of args to unquote before executing command.

-h

Display a short help message and exit.

-N

If -n is also specified, separate arguments in the output with a newline. This option cannot be used at the same time as -0.

-n

Do not actually execute command, just print out its expanded form.

-p

Do not search the environment variable PATH for the specified command. If this flag is specified, unquote uses execv(3) instead of execvp(3) to execute the command. In other words, command should be a full path to an executable program; PATH is not searched.

-q

Quiet operation; even more quiet when more than one -q flag is specified.

-R

Do the exact opposite of normal operation: quote the arguments instead of unquoting them. Useful when one needs to test a program with a long quoted argument.

-V

Display version information and exit. When combined with one or more -v switches, unquote also attempts to display information about its build environment.

-v

Verbose operation; even more verbose when more than one -v flag is specified.

ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables affect the execution of unquote:

UNQUOTE_ARGS

Specify a list of args to unquote before executing command.

FILES

None relevant in the present version.

EXAMPLES

Display ‘Test’.

Add a vpopmail user ‘testuser’ with a password ‘%Test$’.

BUGS

Should command-line fields and -f arguments override UNQUOTE_ARGS?

HISTORY

Written by Peter Pentchev in 2001.

AUTHORS

Peter Pentchev ⟨roam@ringlet.net⟩.