this is what I use:
-- escape out all \,$,[,],; with backslash
-- then use eval list instead of split to preserve quoted terms
regsub -all {[\\\$\[\];]} $1 {\\&} search_string
set search_words [eval list $search_string]
this does NOT handle odd numbers of " at ALL; it will error out. but it does group the evenly quoted args as desired.
