Function

GLibshell_unquote

Declaration

gchar*
g_shell_unquote (
  const gchar* quoted_string,
  GError** error
)

Description

Unquotes a string as the shell (/bin/sh) would.

This function only handles quotes; if a string contains file globs, arithmetic operators, variables, backticks, redirections, or other special-to-the-shell features, the result will be different from the result a real shell would produce (the variables, backticks, etc. will be passed through literally instead of being expanded).

This function is guaranteed to succeed if applied to the result of g_shell_quote(). If it fails, it returns NULL and sets the error.

The quoted_string need not actually contain quoted or escaped text; g_shell_unquote() simply goes through the string and unquotes/unescapes anything that the shell would. Both single and double quotes are handled, as are escapes including escaped newlines.

The return value must be freed with g_free().

Possible errors are in the G_SHELL_ERROR domain.

Shell quoting rules are a bit strange. Single quotes preserve the literal string exactly. escape sequences are not allowed; not even \' - if you want a ' in the quoted text, you have to do something like 'foo'\''bar'. Double quotes allow $, ``,,`, and newline to be escaped with backslash. Otherwise double quotes preserve things literally.

Parameters

quoted_string

Type: const gchar*

Shell-quoted string.

The data is owned by the caller of the function.
The value is a file system path, using the OS encoding.
error

Type: GError **

The return location for a recoverable error.

The argument can be NULL.
If the return location is not NULL, then you must initialize it to a NULL GError*.
The argument will left initialized to NULL by the function if there are no errors.
In case of error, the argument will be set to a newly allocated GError; the caller will take ownership of the data, and be responsible for freeing it.

Return value

Type: gchar*

An unquoted string.

The caller of the function takes ownership of the data, and is responsible for freeing it.
The value is a file system path, using the OS encoding.