But then again, it won't solve the problem of checking for escaped quotes within the string.

To me this is the wrong time/place to worry about this. You deal with issues like that when you read your data in. My understanding is that the OP wanted to design an interface that could take quoted variables and do the right thing, or take unquoted variables and do the right thing. As long as the interface defines clearly what constitues a quoted variable, and what the rules it uses to recognize one, then it is the callers responsibility to handle the data appropriately.

Consider that perhaps on occasion the fact that the quote handling isn't perfect may be a useful workaround for a tight situation.

However the fact that this behaviour is open to abuse might make me add a safety mechanism to prevent it if I choose, and would certainly result in a note in the documentation stating that it is no more secure than the data it is fed.


---
demerphq

<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Test if string is already quote()'d? by demerphq
in thread Test if string is already quote()'d? by Seumas

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.