CPAN::HandleConfig(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide CPAN::HandleConfig(3pm)

# [NAME](#NAME)

CPAN::HandleConfig - internal configuration handling for CPAN.pm

## ["CLASS->safe\_quote ITEM"](#_CLASS)

Quotes an item to become safe against spaces in shell interpolation. An item is enclosed in double quotes if:

```
  - the item contains spaces in the middle
  - the item does not start with a quote
```

This happens to avoid shell interpolation problems when whitespace is present in directory names.

This method uses "commands\_quote" to determine the correct quote. If "commands\_quote" is a space, no quoting will take place.

if it starts and ends with the same quote character: leave it as it is

if it contains no whitespace: leave it as it is

if it contains whitespace, then

if it contains quotes: better leave it as it is

else: quote it with the correct quote type for the box we're on

# [LICENSE](#LICENSE)

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

2026-10-26 perl v5.44.0

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Document: CPAN::HandleConfig(3pm) from perl 5.44.0-r3 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/Perl/perl5.git