Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
>> Yes.  And cursed they are but so it is. :-)
>
> Oh, come on. I know all about the "inherent danger", and I still use  
> spaces in my file names, and probably always will. It's simply easier  
> for us humans to think that way.

If you couldn't tell I was acknowledging their troubles in a
"tongue-in-cheek" way saying that they are annoying but not really a
terrible problem but that life would be simpler without them.  I don't
think there is any denying that script programming would be a lot
simpler without them.  But I am not telling anyone not to use them.
It doesn't bother me if people define acceptable input to be a subset
of the range allowed by the operating system.  I would want
appropriate error checking and diagnostic feedback reporting to the
user so that users understand what is happening when invalid input is
provided.  So go for it.  Even so they are still cursed. :-)

> (I have yet to encounter a newline in a file name, however...)

I always avoid whitespace in filenames.  Therefore to me anything that
has whitespace in it falls on the other side of the line where
whitespace in filenames needs to be handled.  I think it is great that
you have yet another more detailed separation of the difference
between file names with newlines and names with non-newline
whitespace.

By the way I *have* encountered files with newlines in them.  I didn't
create them.  I want nothing to do with them.  But I have hit them
when other people have created them.  They are possible.  They are not
completely unknown in the wild.

> What about programs that only understand whitespace or NUL as  
> delimiters?

Hmm... Such as?  (thinking... not coming up with an example)

> (Granted, in my case, I generally only have "problems" with  
> find and xargs, for which "xargs -d '\n'" is my preferred solution.)

Yep.  Wish it were included in the standards.

Bob


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