Re: Strange file names

[Tom Zanussi <tom.zanussi@intel.com>]

On Tue, 2012-03-27 at 20:22 +0200, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> Dear Tom Zanussi,
> 
> In message <1332870781.20140.12.camel@elmorro> you wrote:
> >
> > > Arghhh... This is totally broken. Do not do this.
> > 
> > Why do you say so - they're legal filenames and useful for this purpose?
> 
> Not anything that is legal (in the sense that it stretches the
> technical possibilities to the limit) actually makes sense.
> 
> Yes, Unix allows nearly arbitrary file names.  Yes, it is technically
> possible to store the source code of a program or a script in a file
> name.  The fact that nobody does this should make you think if this is
> a clever approach that nobody else could figure out, or if it is just
> plain ......
> 

Yeah, as I mentioned, the motivation was that it seemed the most
straightforward thing to do, notwithstanding the ugliness of the file
names.

> Please consider the mental welfare of the people who have to maintain
> that code after you, who have to type file names like "{{ if
> kernel_choice == "linux-yocto-rt_3.2": }} linux-yocto-rt_3.2.bbappend".
> 

Believe me, I did consider it, since I was the one who had to time them
in in the first place. ;-).

And I have to agree, it is a pain to edit them, mainly because of the
need for quotes - actually I finally resorted to using Nautilus which
made it much easier.

In the end, I balanced that against the fact that it would be very few
people editing these files very rarely (once a release basically), and
decided to do it anyway.

> Even standard commands like "ls" produce output that make my toe nails
> roll up:
> 
> $ ls scripts/lib/bsp/substrate/target/arch/x86_64/recipes-kernel/linux/
> files
> {{ if kernel_choice == "linux-yocto_3.0": }} linux-yocto_3.0.bbappend
> {{ if kernel_choice == "linux-yocto_3.2": }} linux-yocto_3.2.bbappend
> {{ if kernel_choice == "linux-yocto-rt_3.0": }} linux-yocto-rt_3.0.bbappend
> {{ if kernel_choice == "linux-yocto-rt_3.2": }} linux-yocto-rt_3.2.bbappend
> kernel-list.noinstall
> $
> 
> PLEASE do not to this!
> 

If everyone really hates this, I'm perfectly happy with getting rid of
it - it's supposed to be a usability tool after all, and I definitely
don't want to be doing the opposite...

Tom

> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
>