[H-GEN] spaces in files

Jason Henry Parker jasonp at uq.net.au
Tue Aug 29 02:16:01 EDT 2000


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"Grant, Luke" <lgrant at seven.com.au> writes:

> We have this particularly buggy designer app that some foolish ppl
> spent mucho big dollars on and it alows the client machines to save
> files containing the space char in their name but will not open
> them. It chooses to crash badly instead. The previous version of this
> app was written for QNX which replaces space chars in file names with
> underlines by default. The programers odviously didn't know that the
> linux file system did not do this when they chose to switch OS and
> their responce to my pointing it out is "include something about no
> spaces in your usage policy".

Have them fix the application instead.  As you guess, it will be
pretty difficult to work around the problem, and years of Windows
allowing spaces in file names will be a heard thing for users to
unlearn.

Frankly, I think that since Unix *does* allow spaces in filenames, and
since the application crashes, it's what should be fixed, instead of
crippling ext2.

jason, YA reason to stick to alphanumerics *only* in filenames[1]

[1] : Not to mention the bash bug I saw the other day: there were two
      directories, `foo' and `foo bar'[2].  Come what may, bash would
      *not* chdir() into `foo bar', preferring to chdir() to `foo'
      instead.

[2] : Created by a Windows system, of course.
-- 
``I worry that you'll work in an office ... have children ... celebrate
wedding anniversaries ... the world of heterosexuals is a sick and
boring life!''  --  Aunt Ida

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