Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 20:35:53 -0600 From: Mike Meyer <mwm-dated-1044930954.b6293d@mired.org> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Cc: Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net>, Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: handling non-printable characters in file names Message-ID: <15937.51721.287955.421825@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com> References: <3E41A24E.9090607@earthlink.net> <15937.47061.743702.496178@guru.mired.org> <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com>
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In <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com>, Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialte= ch.com> typed: > Mike Meyer wrote: > > The only way to change this behavior is to change the kernel source= to > > support it. Expect resistance from every developer in a country th= at > > 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? I think it would cause far more problems than it solved. It only helps people on systems that only have one person creating files on them. If it's a web server that uses WEBDAV or some such, you're suddenly in an area where someone may want to post their Resum=E9. As for problems, what happens if you're extracting an archive that includes one of the "illegal" characters. Most archivers just stop dead on open errors. That's pretty useless. What should happen, and why= ? What happens if I try and open an existing file that has an illegal character in the file name? If it's allowed, why? If it isn't, what error does it return, and why? > You don't think that would be useful? Do you really think admins wou= ld > mind? I think it would be very helpful - I'd disallow whitespace rig= ht > off the bat, as it causes more problems than I can keep track of! Not even MS-DOS is that restrictive. Which means you either have to apply the restrictions to foreign file systems, or you haven't solved your problem. Of course, if your foreign file systems are used by foreign OS's, you may suddenly find yourself with files with spaces in the names anyway. Besides, you may someday start using a GUI file browser, and suddenly you won't be able to have a file that has your name on it. That would suck. I won't talk about explaining to Mac users why they couldn't put '/' in their file names on Unix. We also won't talk about creating files called "* " in some poor victims directory... It's funny - for years, I used to make fun of Microso~ because they had such screwy file name constraints. Now they've fixed their file systems, and people want to impose constraints on the file systems I use every day. =09<mike --=20 Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>=09=09http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more inform= ation. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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