diff --git a/lib/puppet/parser/functions/shellquote.rb b/lib/puppet/parser/functions/shellquote.rb
index ee070c740..d44dc2b80 100644
--- a/lib/puppet/parser/functions/shellquote.rb
+++ b/lib/puppet/parser/functions/shellquote.rb
@@ -1,65 +1,69 @@
 # Copyright (C) 2009 Thomas Bellman
 #
 # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
 # a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
 # "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
 # without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
 # distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
 # permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
 # the following conditions:
 #
 # The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
 # included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 #
 # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
 # EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
 # MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
 # IN NO EVENT SHALL THOMAS BELLMAN BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
 # OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
 # ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
 # OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 #
 # Except as contained in this notice, the name of Thomas Bellman shall
 # not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or
 # other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization
 # from Thomas Bellman.
 
 module Puppet::Parser::Functions
 
   Safe = 'a-zA-Z0-9@%_+=:,./-'    # Safe unquoted
   Dangerous = '!"`$\\'            # Unsafe inside double quotes
 
   newfunction(:shellquote, :type => :rvalue, :doc => "\
     Quote and concatenate arguments for use in Bourne shell.
 
     Each argument is quoted separately, and then all are concatenated
     with spaces.  If an argument is an array, the elements of that
     array is interpolated within the rest of the arguments; this makes
     it possible to have an array of arguments and pass that array to
     shellquote instead of having to specify each argument
     individually in the call.
     ") \
   do |args|
 
     result = []
     args.flatten.each do |word|
       if word.length != 0 and word.count(Safe) == word.length
         result << word
       elsif word.count(Dangerous) == 0
         result << ('"' + word + '"')
       elsif word.count("'") == 0
         result << ("'" + word + "'")
       else
         r = '"'
+        # We want each byte, because that is how sh will process it in enough
+        # cases; Ruby 1.8.5 ends up making this the way that gets expressed,
+        # because it requires a block to the `each_byte` method.
         word.each_byte do |c|
+          c = c.chr
           r += "\\" if Dangerous.include?(c)
-          r += c.chr
+          r += c
         end
         r += '"'
         result << r
       end
     end
 
     return result.join(" ")
   end
 end