Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4

Wayne Scott
2004-09-10T15:50:40Z

From: Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com>
> Everyone likes ':', so we'd have "problem/shoe:size". (Don't bother to
> complain about files which have : in them, because I already know it
> sucks, but it's an example.)

[[ I just joined this discussion, so pardon if this is already known.]]

One advantage of ':' is that portable programs already have to avoid
it because of NTFS alternate data streams:
http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=archive&id=ntfs-streams

For example on an XP box with NTFS:

$ mkdir j
$ cd j
$ echo hi > foo:bar
$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 wscott Administ 0 Sep 10 10:45 foo
$ cat foo
$ cat foo:bar
hi
$ rm foo
$ cat foo:bar
cat: foo:bar: No such file or directory

-Wayne