As I said, that hasn't been a problem for a long time: $ find . -type f ./foo bar ./--stupid-filename ./-annoying dir name!/--very annoying pat

As I said, that hasn't been a problem for a long time: $ find . -type f ./foo bar ./--stupid-filename ./-annoying dir name!/--very annoying path... $ echo "pid=$$" pid=31281 $ while IFS= read -r -d '' file ; do > echo "[pid=$$] do something with '${file}'" > list[i++]="$file" > done < <(find . -type f -print0) [pid=31281] do something with './foo bar' [pid=31281] do something with './--stupid-filename' [pid=31281] do something with './-annoying dir name!/--very annoying path...' $ declare -p list declare -a list='([0]="./foo bar" [1]="./--stupid-filename" \ [2]="./-annoying dir name!/--very annoying path..." [3]="./iter.sh")' Using the character literal $'\0' also works as the delimiter, but Bash doesn't support sending null bytes in args. In bash, $'\0' is the empty string: $ x=$'\0' $ declare -p x declare -- x=""