These functions are only used by nm-meta-setting-desc.c. Make them internal.
Unfortunately, they are part of "common.h" which cannot be used without
the rest of nmcli. Still todo.
The "shared" directory contains files that are possibly used by all components
of NetworkManager repository.
Some of these files are even copied as-is to other projects (VPN plugins, nm-applet)
and used there without modification. Move those files to a separate directory.
By moving them to a common directory, it is clearer that they belong
together. Also, you can easier compare the copied versions to their
original via
$ diff -r ./shared/nm-utils/ /path/to/nm-vpn-plugin/shared/nm-utils/