Metadata Multiselect list box escaping quote and comma characters

System

In my metadata DCT, I have a multi select list box that is fed from an ouside source. When the end user selects several items from the list box and hits save, an extended attribute is set on the file with a comma separated list of these values. However, if an item in the list contains a comma, it doesn't work as expected. The attribute is saved successfully, however, the comma is not escaped at all which makes it impossible to tell which commas are the delimeters and which are part of the data. This means that when you go back to tag the file again, the value(s) that contain commas are not selected because their value does not match the value provided from the attribute.

For example:

String: "Now is the time for me to run, jump, and slide home"

Tagging expects to find three values:
"Now is the time for me to run"
" jump"
" and slide home"

It finds none of these, and therefore does not select anything.

Is there a way to escape these characters or do I have to write my inline to watch for the comma and strip them out?

Also, when the select items contain double quotes, the data will appear to save, however, it does not. No error is raised, it just will not save the list of selected items. I presume the same escape rules apply to the double quote as do to the comma, if they exist at all.

Thanks.

TS 6.1
Solaris 5.8