it is *required* only if the filename - contains a ':' or newline, or - starts with a '"'. Is that the intent?
Yes. - For parsing: - If the first character is a '"', then the escaped syntax is in use. The filename is enclosed in "..."; inside, - occurrences of '"' and '%' are escaped as %22 and %25, respectively, - other ASCII characters may be escaped in %nn syntax as well, where nn is the hexadecimal notation (case insignificant) of the byte value in the ASCII encoding. - Otherwise, the filename ends at the first ':' or end of line. Ok, I agree about using %nn instead of \ooo. Your point about Windows filenames and \'s seems valid to me. - For output: The escaped syntax is required if the filename contains a ':' or newline, or starts with a '"'. It may also be used for other filenames. I agree. So, barring further comments/suggestion, I'll propose that to rms in the next couple of days. Thanks very much. karl