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authorBruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>2005-09-19 15:46:26 +0000
committerBruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>2005-09-19 15:46:26 +0000
commit610d31551cab51c9cc70c99aed93345027888a23 (patch)
tree7f683882e5f35209d4a03cced951d5cdf502739e /doc
parent896d8e9f1c3e752ef11d3b3ab64f1c709d163edd (diff)
downloadgnulib-610d31551cab51c9cc70c99aed93345027888a23.tar.gz
Documentation about quote and quotearg modules.
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+@node Quoting
+@section Quoting
+
+@cindex Quoting
+@findex quote
+@findex quotearg
+
+Gnulib provides @samp{quote} and @samp{quotearg} modules to help with
+quoting text, such as file names, in messages to the user. Here's an
+example of using @samp{quote}:
+
+@example
+#include <quote.h>
+ ...
+ error (0, errno, _("cannot change owner of %s"), quote (fname));
+@end example
+
+This differs from
+
+@example
+ error (0, errno, _("cannot change owner of `%s'"), fname);
+@end example
+
+@noindent in that @code{quote} escapes unusual characters in
+@code{fname}, e.g., @samp{'} and control characters like @samp{\n}.
+
+@findex quote_n
+However, a caveat: @code{quote} reuses the storage that it returns.
+Hence if you need more than one thing quoted at the same time, you
+need to use @code{quote_n}.
+
+@findex quotearg_alloc
+Also, the quote module is not suited for multithreaded applications.
+In that case, you have to use @code{quotearg_alloc}, defined in the
+@samp{quotearg} module, which is decidedly less convenient.