Let’s say you have an array of strings:

args = [ "arg1", "an argument with whitespace", 'even some "quotes"']

..and you want to pass them to a command, exactly as is. You don’t want it split on spaces, you don’t want quotes to disappear. You just want to pass exactly these strings to the command you’re running. In python, you would do something like:

subprocess.check_call(["echo"] + args)

In low-level C, it’s more effort, but it’s not really harder - you just use the execv* family of system calls, which takes an array of strings. At least on a UNIX-like OS.

But what if you’re using C# on Windows? Then it’s going to cost you a veritable screenful of code if you want to not screw it up. And you’ll probably screw it up. The internet has plenty of examples that happen to work well enough for simple data. But then they break when you add spaces, or double quotes, or backslashes, or multiple backslashes followed by a double quote. You don’t want that code. You want this code.

I’m honestly floored that nobody has published this code anywhere before (that I could find). So with the firm belief that it’s insane for anybody to have to implement this ridiculous escaping scheme for themselves, here it is: