I need to handle the possibility that the variables contain arbitrary weird characters ... Is there a standard way to deal with this, while keeping the convenience of the above line of code?

Yes. Untaint your data. Filter the variables through whatever regexes guarantee that the variables contain only "safe" strings. Don't invoke system() if any string doesn't pass. That's the easiest, safest way to be bulletproof, and it's the standard way, too.

In reply to Re: system, pipes, shell, quoting by dws
in thread system, pipes, shell, quoting by superpete

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