--- /dev/null
+#
+# shell_escape.rb
+#
+
+require 'shellwords'
+
+module Puppet::Parser::Functions
+ newfunction(:shell_escape, :type => :rvalue, :doc => <<-EOS
+Escapes a string so that it can be safely used in a Bourne shell command line.
+
+Note that the resulting string should be used unquoted and is not intended for use in double quotes nor in single
+quotes.
+
+This function behaves the same as ruby's Shellwords.shellescape() function.
+ EOS
+ ) do |arguments|
+
+ raise(Puppet::ParseError, "shell_escape(): Wrong number of arguments given (#{arguments.size} for 1)") if arguments.size != 1
+
+ # explicit conversion to string is required for ruby 1.9
+ string = arguments[0].to_s
+
+ result = Shellwords.shellescape(string)
+
+ return result
+ end
+end
+
+# vim: set ts=2 sw=2 et :