In practice, I seem to end up with a `sed` or `perl` script to mangle one string format into another between processes anyway. And then it all breaks between sy

In practice, I seem to end up with a `sed` or `perl` script to mangle one string format into another between processes anyway. And then it all breaks between systems because half the most common commands have different defaults between systems. You can't even encode lists of strings in a format that's reliably understood by all UNIX programs.