R devel - Nov 2012 - R CMD check fails when run in a directory with parentheses in the pathname

For what it's worth: running R CMD check on a package when the outdir
has parentheses in the pathname fails with the following error:

* checking PDF version of manual ...sh: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
 WARNING
LaTeX errors when creating PDF version.
This typically indicates Rd problems.
* checking PDF version of manual without hyperrefs or index ...sh:
Syntax error: "(" unexpected
 ERROR
Re-running with no redirection of stdout/stderr.

  The workaround is as simple as using -o to redirect the output to a
sane path.

  This could be just a case of "don't do this", but I wanted to
save
some future problem-Googler 10 minutes of digging around in the guts of
.tools:::check_packages() to find out what was going on ...

  I don't know whether this is technically a bug or not.  Presumably
something could be tweaked in check_pkg_manual() within
src/library/tools/R/check.R to protect parentheses in the shell argument
string ...

  Ben Bolker