If the file name comes from the portable set ([-_a-zA-Z0-9./], and probably a few others like + that are not required by POSIX), then ...
Yes. This is what I plan to propose to rms. I asked the W3 person who originally wrote about this whole thing to get his feedback first. Should I go ahead and hack on a new quoting style in quotearg.c that can be used in this manner, adding "" around the string only if an escape sequence or quote_these_too character is encountered? Please. Thanks, Karl