added pass_to_shell function needed for application portal.
added required is uci function from old commotion helpers
fixed a new commotion helpers functions calling an old commotion_helpers function
fix encoding functions return values
Merge pull request #1 from opentechinstitute/encoding-returns

fix encoding functions return values

tested by areynold
cleaning up
Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/elationfoundation/commotion-lua-helpers into usability