> To that end, it would be very nice indeed if there were a way to avoid it. One way might be to add a third way of quoting to dot-commands: For example, if white space is followed by a # character, the rest of the intput line would be taken verbatim as the final argument (choice of trigger character subject to debate, of course). To my mind, it would be a lot better to have a `set_val` or some variant that one could call that would skip the attempt to use `VALUES(%Q,%s);` and just use the `VALUES(%Q,%Q)` path. It'd still be a bit of a surprise for people that use `set` without understanding what it's doing, but at least there'd be a way to be explicit about what interactions with the shell here.