id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc
29	Special characters in quoted strings are not handled as strings	Lewis Rosenthal	Steven Levine	"Nifty summary, huh?

Normally, the presence of a semicolon indicates an include list. To override that functionality, it is suggested to surround the semicolon by square brackets. However, this is not only unintuitive, but often impossible (such as when filenames captured in a wildcard specification include semicolons and these characters are not specified on the command line).

Use case:

{{{
[c:\usr\lib] del ""urpo.dll;123456""
There are no more files. ""C:\var\temp\usr\lib\urpo.dll""
There are no more files. ""C:\var\temp\usr\lib\123456""
     0 files deleted
}}}

In the above example, tab completion was used to specify the file. The inconsistency (see related ticket #18) becomes more confusing with behavior such as:

{{{
{0}[c:\var\temp\usr\lib] copy \usr\lib\urpo.dll *[;]123456
C:\usr\lib\urpo.dll => C:\var\temp\usr\lib\urpo.dll[;]123456
     1 file copied
}}}

which actually creates the file with the square brackets surrounding the semicolon, whereas:

{{{
{0}[c:\var\temp\usr\lib] copy \usr\lib\urpo.dll ""*;123456""
C:\usr\lib\urpo.dll => C:\var\temp\usr\lib\urpo.dll;123456
     1 file copied
}}}

seems to work.

Thus knowing when to quote, when to use square brackets, and when to use both (apparently) is highly dependent upon the command being issued and the circumstances surrounding the occurrence(s) of the special character(s).
"	defect	assigned	minor	Version-3.10	Base	3.08