World: r3wp

so the mention of a block in your original question wasn't an actual 
trequirement

yeah, I was thinking post parse

TAKE is slower in R2.7.6+ than R3 because it is a mezzanine (but 
useful for forward compatibility), and because REMOVE from the beginning 
of a series is faster in R3. A faster way to do your last example 
is this:

set [one two] three: parse ie none
three: reform skip three 2

TAKE is one of the most useful new backports from R3 though :)

Another question. Let's say I have a func .. xyz: func[msg] [print 
msg]

and I have a string "xyz this message" that I convert to a block 
 blk: [xyz "this message" ]

How can i set xyz in that block to equal my xyz function.. so that 
I can DO the block and end up with 
this message
 
?

In other words, execute a string as though it was a function?

Like this?
xyz: func[msg] [print msg]
blk: [xyz "this message" ]

blk/1: :xyz   ;; set the first entry to be the function
do blk         ;; then do it
this message  ;; result!

what if you don't know that bkl/1 will be xyz?

hmm.. this works
do load blk

If you are sure that bl/1 is the word that holds a function:
  do get to-word blk/1 blk/2
You'll need some error trapping.

yeah.. and some validation too.

Do load only seems to do what you want:
 do load ["xxx" "xxx" "xxx" "xxx" "end"]
== "end"

; Also:

do load/next "xyz This Message" ; is the same as
do [xyz " This Message"]

func [cmd][
	all [
		cmd: attempt [load/next cmd]
		word? cmd/1
		value? cmd/1
		any-function? get cmd/1
		do cmd
	]
]

Never noticed this before

>> to-file join %test "[0].png"
== %test%5B0%5D.png

why exactly is this necessary? Is [ and ] special characters in a 
filing system?

Getting really confused now

>> f: %test.png
== %test.png
>> f: %test[0].png
** Script Error: .png has no value
** Near: .png

Ok, anyone know how to access a file like this ? test[0].png

escaping with ^ doesn't work

file: to-file "test[0].png" seems working on Vista

I'm on vista ...

>> to-file "test[0].png"
== %test%5B0%5D.png

yes but you can read or write with that, it's correctly traduced

I'll try

Interesting ....

works :)

;-)

i'm wondering what result is produced if the real file name contains 
various % caracters

I don't want to know!

ha ha

it's really incredible.
>>to-file "test]"
== %test%5D
>>to-file "test%5D"
== %test%5D


seems identical, but rebol make the difference. Probably an obscufated 
stuff in the path.

needs to be consistent

Yes, that looks like a mold bug. Or it could be a feature ! :)

%file[0].png is loaded as three values:
>> load "%test[0].png"
== [%test [0] .png
]

Any way to find the creation date of a file. I see modified?

it's not a mold bug, [ is not a valid char in REBOL file! values, 
it has nothing to do with the OS.

>> file: %"test[0].png"
== %test%5B0%5D.png
>> pick file 1
== #"t"
>> pick file 5
== #"["
>> pick file 6
== #"0"
>> to string! file
== "test[0].png"

I think you can use get-modes on a file to get that data

Should that remain that way?  [ being a non-valid char in file! type

Yes, because you can always use %"test[0].png" instead, no need for 
to-file.

except the name is being generated programmatically

So generate all of your names in quotes.

I'm interested to know why the restriction exists

It's not a restriction, it's REBOL syntax. [ is a delimiter, just 
like space (which also requires quotes if put in a filename). Parens 
too.

and why can't we escape it?

^[0^]

Because escaping for file! literals is done with %, not ^. The file! 
type has a different syntax than the string! type.

ok.