diff --git a/hooks/_common.sh b/hooks/_common.sh
index 3b9b39450..f4bd7c7e1 100644
--- a/hooks/_common.sh
+++ b/hooks/_common.sh
@@ -164,21 +164,17 @@ function common::is_hook_run_on_whole_repo {
 # 3. Complete hook execution and return exit code
 # Arguments:
 #   hook_id (string) hook ID, see `- id` for details in .pre-commit-hooks.yaml file
-#   args_array_length (integer) Count of arguments in args array.
-#   args (array) arguments that configure wrapped tool behavior
+#   args (string with array) arguments that configure wrapped tool behavior
 #   files (array) filenames to check
 #######################################################################
 function common::per_dir_hook {
   local -r hook_id="$1"
-  local -i args_array_length=$2
-  shift 2
+  # Expand args to a true array
   local -a args=()
-  # Expand args to a true array.
-  # Based on https://stackoverflow.com/a/10953834
-  while ((args_array_length-- > 0)); do
-    args+=("$1")
-    shift
-  done
+  while read -r -d '' ARG; do
+    args+=("$ARG")
+  done < <(echo "$2" | xargs printf '%s\0')
+  shift 2
   # assign rest of function's positional ARGS into `files` array,
   # despite there's only one positional ARG left
   local -a -r files=("$@")
diff --git a/hooks/tfupdate.sh b/hooks/tfupdate.sh
index ec305ae30..a05b0c3b5 100755
--- a/hooks/tfupdate.sh
+++ b/hooks/tfupdate.sh
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ function main {
   # JFYI: suppress color for `tfupdate` is N/A`
 
   # shellcheck disable=SC2153 # False positive
-  common::per_dir_hook "$HOOK_ID" "${#ARGS[@]}" "${ARGS[@]}" "${FILES[@]}"
+  common::per_dir_hook "$HOOK_ID" "${ARGS[*]}" "${FILES[@]}"
 }
 #######################################################################
 # Unique part of `common::per_dir_hook`. The function is executed in loop