in reply to safe quoting for shell parameters
Makeshifts last the longest.
See: ls a b c is transformed into ls 'a b c' which results in ls: a b c: No such file or directory
Useful? No :-) And splitting by spaces won't help, e.g. ls "a' b" c gives ls '"a'\' 'b"' 'c' instead of ls 'a'\'' b' 'c'