Allowing spaces in filenames where command invocations are pure text streams⁰ is the problem IMO, though one made several distinct times¹, and one that would be

Allowing spaces in filenames where command invocations are pure text streams⁰ is the problem IMO, though one made several distinct times¹, and one that would be made again if all past occurrences were somehow removed from history, so suggesting we fix things that way is pointless as a way forward. Requiring filenames to be quotes if they contain spaces, or optionally otherwise, would help – similar to CSV values with commas in. Though this opens up other issues: what about filenames containing quotes, and when nesting calls² the question of what part does the unpacking becomes a complex question without explicit structure. And to be honest we have enough trouble with clients sending us malformed CSV with unquoted commas that I can confidently state this wouldn't work either. And you can't trust users to follow instructions, even internal users, where the limitation might be an issue. If you put a simple helper tool together and say “it won't work with spaces in filenames”, either it becomes a high priority ticket that the thing you jammed together as a favour doesn't work with spaces, or you get so sick or responding to problem reports that turn out to be due to the matter that you spend time fixing it up anyway. </rant> -- [0] for systems that pass structured data, such as powershell, spaces are handled fine, though that would be a lot of work to retrofit into shells & utilities with a generally useful level of conformance [1] like the convergent evolution of wings in pterodactyls/birds/bats or crab-like features all over the place [2] for instance ssh to run a complex command line involving sudo