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  • printf %q is initially from ksh93 and is also supported by zsh's printf, but each implementation outputs quoting in the syntax of the respective shell and is generally unsafe to use in a different locale from the one it was generated in and may not be safe if not interpreted by the shell it was intended for. Calling printf %q in the C locale with most implementations is more likely to produce an output that works reliably in all the shells that support ksh93's $'...' form of quote (a subset of which is now specified by POSIX). Commented Oct 9 at 19:18
  • If the values selected by awk contain space (assuming default IFS) or ?*[] (and maybe more) they are split and/or globbed before they are passed to printf and thus %q has no chance to quote them, except in 'plain' zsh. Commented Oct 10 at 0:49
  • that's true. i should have used an array instead. Commented Oct 10 at 0:59
  • here, when you have the values in shell variables, you could also directly run the final program, bypassing the quoting issues srvctl add database -d "${a[0]}" -o "${a[1]}". (Of course this won't work if they were going to e.g. send the command off to another host to run, but the Q doesn't seem exactly clear on that.) Commented Oct 10 at 6:12
  • could do that. or just pipe it into sh or bash. there's thousands of possibilities. Commented Oct 10 at 6:15