Solution:
I eventually got it with bash arrays, my solution is here.
Question:
In bash, I can have a function whose arguments have spaces, and I can use $@ or $* to get the quoting right:
$ _() { ruby -e 'p ARGV' "$@"; }; _ 'a b c' '1 2 3'
["a b c", "1 2 3"]
$ _() { ruby -e 'p ARGV' "$*"; }; _ 'a b c' '1 2 3'
["a b c 1 2 3"]
I'm building up a string where the arguments could have spaces, and would like it to behave like the "$@", is there a way to do this?
$ arg1="a b c"
$ arg2="1 2 3"
$ args="$arg2 $arg2"
# behaves like $*, but I want it to behave like $@
$ ruby -e 'p ARGV' "$args"
["1 2 3 1 2 3"]
$ ruby -e 'p ARGV' $args
["1", "2", "3", "1", "2", "3"]
$ args=()
$ args+=("a b c")
$ args+=("1 2 3")
$ ruby -e 'p ARGV' "${args[@]}"
["a b c", "1 2 3"]