> not why popen is being used on the result of the interpretation. I haven't read the source but I'm guessing that if HAVE_POPEN is undefined, this special arg

> not why popen is being used on the result of the interpretation. I haven't read the source but I'm guessing that if HAVE_POPEN is undefined, this special argument interpretation is disabled, in which case it would just be two different ways of looking at the same thing. > Also, why are pipes even being allowed in the file name in the first place? The sibling comments are correct, but whether or not POSIX supports pipe characters in filenames is irrelevant for the issue at hand. ImageMagick is free to allow any kind of character in the arguments that it accepts. There is no POSIX/*nix magic that would ensure all arguments passed on the command line (or in the xlink:href attribute, as per the SVG example) are valid filenames.