Examine the split man page and observe that split is taking a pattern for which there may be special characters. These special (meta) characters need to be considered. If the user is not aware of them, then they will not get the splitting they expect. Hence you would would want to un-special them. However if they were aware of them, specifically utilizing them, and you un-special them, again the user will not get what they expect.

In reply to Re: Split - what am i doing wrong? by otto
in thread Split - what am i doing wrong? by Anonymous Monk

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