How to escape a whole string in a : command?

Question

Let's see. I have a gvim running and I want open a file, respecting the autocmds (which rules out --remote-tab).

Now I know I can do (basically, with some tweak):

gvim --remote-send ":tabe my_file<CR>" 

which works. But if a file has spaces or strange chars in it, I have to do the following:

gvim --remote-send ":tabe my\\ file<CR>"

(the double \\ is because one of them is eaten by the shell; this is equivalent to manually type

`:tabe my\ file` 

in vim and it works). Now, I can find a way to create that string in the shell or whatever, but I hoped I could "globally quote" the string in the ":tabe" command, like

 gvim --remote-send ":tabe 'my file'<CR>"

or

 gvim --remote-send ":tabe \"my file\"<CR>"

--- this is equivalent to writing directly in the vim command line :tabe "my file"; it seems it is not working. I can explicitly quote all space in the string with the shell, doing something like

# <ESC> because the gvim instance can be in a mode different from normal
# the double CR: do not ask. 
# the argument MUST be a full path
file="$(readlink -f "$@")"
fileq="$(echo "$file" |  awk '{gsub(/ /,"\\\ ")}1')" # quote spaces FIXME add other chars
exec gvim 2>/dev/null --servername $desktop --remote-send "<ESC>:tabe $fileq <CR><CR>"

but it works just for spaces and not other special chars like tabs and " (nor newlines, but if you have newlines in your file names you deserve it!).

The question:

Independently on the particular shell, with which I will deal after :-), is there a way when directly typing in the vim tabe: line to globally quote a filename without going to quote the "strange" chars one by one?

Answer 1

For general info, and thanks to all the comments, this is the script I use to have an "open in a tab on the gvim on this desktop" script:

#!/bin/bash -x
#
# this is convoluted because it has to finish in an exec to keep the DM happy
# remember to set StartupNotify=false in the .desktop file
#
desktop=desktop_$(xprop -root -notype  _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP | perl -pe 's/.*?= (\d+)/$1/')

if ! vim --serverlist | grep -iq $desktop; then #we need to start the server
    if [ $# != 0 ]; then 
        exec gvim 2>/dev/null --servername $desktop "$@"
    else
        exec gvim 2>/dev/null --servername $desktop  #no files 
    fi
fi
# the only case here is if we need to open a tab in an existing server
if [ $# != 0 ]; then  
        # Do not use --remote-tab, see http://vi.stackexchange.com/questions/2066/different-autocmd-behavior-when-using-remote-tab-silent
        # <ESC> because the gvim instance can be in a mode different from normal
        # the double CR: do not ask. 
        # the argument MUST be a full path
        file="$(readlink -f "$@")"
        #fileq="$(echo "$file" |  awk '{gsub(/ /,"\\\ ")}1')" # quote spaces FIXME add other chars
        fileq=${file// /\\ } # quote spaces FIXME add other chars
        exec gvim 2>/dev/null --servername $desktop --remote-send "<ESC>:tabe $fileq <CR><CR>"
fi

Answer 2

What i've managed to send to Vim is: '<C-\\><C-N>:1wincmd<C-q>x20w<CR>' Where space is defined as x20 which means insert hex$20.