+
+When displaying member names, @command{tar} takes care to avoid
+ambiguities caused by certain characters. This is called @dfn{name
+quoting}. The characters in question are:
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item Non-printable control characters:
+
+@multitable @columnfractions 0.20 0.10 0.60
+@headitem Character @tab ASCII @tab Character name
+@item \a @tab 7 @tab Audible bell
+@item \b @tab 8 @tab Backspace
+@item \f @tab 12 @tab Form feed
+@item \n @tab 10 @tab New line
+@item \r @tab 13 @tab Carriage return
+@item \t @tab 9 @tab Horizontal tabulation
+@item \v @tab 11 @tab Vertical tabulation
+@end multitable
+
+@item Space (ASCII 32)
+
+@item Single and double quotes (@samp{'} and @samp{"})
+
+@item Backslash (@samp{\})
+@end itemize
+
+The exact way @command{tar} uses to quote these characters depends on
+the @dfn{quoting style}. The default quoting style, called
+@dfn{escape} (see below), uses backslash notation to represent control
+characters, space and backslash. Using this quoting style, control
+characters are represented as listed in column @samp{Character} in the
+above table, a space is printed as @samp{\ } and a backslash as @samp{\\}.
+
+@GNUTAR{} offers seven distinct quoting styles, which can be selected
+using @option{--quoting-style} option:
+
+@table @option
+@item --quoting-style=@var{style}
+@opindex quoting-style
+
+Sets quoting style. Valid values for @var{style} argument are:
+literal, shell, shell-always, c, escape, locale, clocale.
+@end table
+
+These styles are described in detail below. To illustrate their
+effect, we will use an imaginary tar archive @file{arch.tar}
+containing the following members:
+
+@smallexample
+@group
+# 1. Contains horizontal tabulation character.
+a tab
+# 2. Contains newline character
+a
+newline
+# 3. Contains a space
+a space
+# 4. Contains double quotes
+a"double"quote
+# 5. Contains single quotes
+a'single'quote
+# 6. Contains a backslash character:
+a\backslash
+@end group
+@end smallexample
+
+Here is how usual @command{ls} command would have listed them, if they
+had existed in the current working directory: