Change your do block to `printf %q\ rm -f "$i" ; echo` and it won't lie about spaces. In case HN has "trimmed" my post in some way, as it often does, that's: percent q backslash space space. Works in bash/zsh, but not dash, probably not whatever your sh is. Can make a function of it trivially, but you have to handle the $# -eq 0 case, return whatever printf returns, etc.