Design nit: For the choice of delimiter, if the "read" routines already handle the escape sequences AND you are generating all the output, you could as easily generate MAC addrs in an escaped form and the consuming shell wouldn't need to care. (yes, MAC addrs of the form xx\:yy\:zz would show up in the output stream, but (other than being ugly) would add no effective complexity to their use...)
Architectural "bigger than nit": The question of having a common "parsable format" across all of the various OpenSolaris utilities -vs- per utility and/or per-family quirks and gratuitous differences *IS* an architectural issue. IMHO, there should be utility code in the system that both generates AND parses a common format so everyone does not end up reinventing this wheel. -John
