Re: RFC: Illegal Characters in File Names

[Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de>]

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On Mon, 2004-07-19 14:21:33 -0500, Joseph D. Wagner <theman@josephdwagner.info>
wrote in message <S265489AbUGSTVf/20040719192135Z+666@vger.kernel.org>:
> I would argue that the shell having problems with them is the exact
> reason they should be made illegal.

The shell does not have problems with strange filenames; it's typically
the user who doesn't really know how to enter them properly.

> Allowing them begs the question "how should they be handled?"  For
> example, if a file name contained a backspace, displaying the raw
> backspace would backup the character's position and result in two
> characters being overwritten: the backspace and the character
> immediately prior to the backspace.  Printing a substitute character
> instead of the raw character simply leads to more questions.  Does
> '\b' mean backspace or backslash and b?  How do you tell the difference?

See, it's only a question of *display*. Currently, a file name is
anything you'd place into an ASCIIZ C string. That is basically
"anything" except the terminating \0. ...and '/' is used to delimit
parts of the whole part, so it's used internally.

Eye-friendly file names are "nice to have", but from my point of view,
it's no more than that.

MfG, JBG

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