What if you populate the array with a character that would probably not be used in a file name, (~), and parse the array for that before the array is used again.

Or, have a "working" array. This would be one that stored arrays are parsed into for using.

Stored array with (~) character
Stored array re-written into sandbox array
Sandbox array is sent to VDIP
Start over with next stored array.

Maybe....
are saying its like this:
say you have an array named FILE1 with 12 array places, i will pre-load it with (~) so...
FILE1 = [~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~][~]

and then when i receive a file named "vdip.txt" from the vdip serially, then the array would be like:
FILE1 = [v][d][i][p][.][t][x][t][~][~][~][~]
am i right with this? please correct me if im wrong...

then when i want to send command to the vdip that i want to copy that particular file, i will be sending the "CPS" command plus the array of bytes stored in FILE1 including the bytes that contains [~] back to the vdip, but the vinculum is very strict with the spelling...if i include these bytes it will respond with "command failed" if only i could remove those unneeded bytes before sending it back to the vdip...

am i getting your idea right?