Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 20:40:49 -0500 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1044926294.fb46ab@mired.org> Cc: Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net>, Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: handling non-printable characters in file names Message-ID: <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com> References: <3E41A24E.9090607@earthlink.net> <15937.47061.743702.496178@guru.mired.org>
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Mike Meyer wrote: > In <3E41A24E.9090607@earthlink.net>, Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net> typed: > >>There's probably someone who can explain why non- >>printable characters are useful in file names, but >>I'd really rather disallow them altogether - if >>there's a build option or control flag to set. >>Anyone? > > BSD is character-set neutral. Well, it tries. The only two characters > that are magic in file names are 0x2f and 0x00, because they both > terminate the file name. Other than that, you are free to use whatever > character encoding you want to. That's why characters that may be > unprintable in some encodings are allowed in file names. What shows > up in the locale en_US.ISO8859-1 as "Resumé" will show up with an > unprintable last character if you haven't set the LANG environment > variable. > > The only way to change this behavior is to change the kernel source to > support it. Expect resistance from every developer in a country that > doesn't use the English alphabet if you try and get that change put > into the tree. What about a feature that allows an administrator to list characters that are disallowed in filenames and directory names? You don't think that would be useful? Do you really think admins would mind? I think it would be very helpful - I'd disallow whitespace right off the bat, as it causes more problems than I can keep track of! -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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