Re: bug#1212: 23.0.60; split-string-and-unquote problems

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:18:20 -0400
> 
> >> >> I do not understand: what makes you think it could be a properly quoted
> >> >> shell command?
> >> > Because you said that working with shell commands was why these
> >> > functions were invented in the first place.  And that is how they are
> >> > used in Emacs as of now.
> >> No, they're used to run commands.  Without going through a shell.
> > Then why would one need quoting?
> 
> Because when you run a command with start-process or call-process, you
> need to specify a list of strings (each being an argument), but the user
> usually wants to enter the list within a single minibuffer.  So from the
> string returned by the read-string (or equivalent) function, we need to
> get a list of strings.

If I am prompted for a command in the minibuffer, as in "M-x compile",
I will type a command that uses shell quoting (assuming I need
quoting).  That is the natural thing to do, so I expect most users to
do the same.  I don't expect many of them to use Lisp string quoting
for commands.