+2010-12-11 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
+
+ * processes.texi (Shell Arguments): Fix documentation of
+ `split-string-and-unquote'. Add indexing. (Bug#7563)
+
2010-12-07 Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
* modes.texi (Auto-Indentation): New section to document SMIE.
@end example
@end defun
-@cindex quoting and unquoting shell command line
+@cindex quoting and unquoting command-line arguments
+@cindex minibuffer input, and command-line arguments
+@cindex @code{call-process}, command-line arguments from minibuffer
+@cindex @code{start-process}, command-line arguments from minibuffer
The following two functions are useful for creating shell commands
from individual argument strings, and taking shell command lines apart
-into individual arguments.
+into individual arguments. These functions are mainly intended to be
+used for converting user input in the minibuffer, a Lisp string, into
+a list of string arguments to be passed to @code{call-process} or
+@code{start-process}, or for the converting such lists of arguments in
+a single Lisp string to be presented in the minibuffer or echo area.
@defun split-string-and-unquote string &optional separators
This function splits @var{string} into substrings at matches for the
@code{"\\s-+"}, which is a regular expression that matches one or more
characters with whitespace syntax (@pxref{Syntax Class Table}).
-This function performs two types of quoting: enclosing a whole string
+This function supports two types of quoting: enclosing a whole string
in double quotes @code{"@dots{}"}, and quoting individual characters
with a backslash escape @samp{\}. The latter is also used in Lisp
strings, so this function can handle those as well.