On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 06:24:31PM -0500, Adam Turoff wrote: > On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 10:24:42PM +0000, Paul Makepeace wrote: > > The traditional restrictions on web usernames are things like only > > alphanumerics, and usually lowercase to reduce user confusion/burden > > remembering. > > > > Why not allow (embedded) whitespace, punctuation, and so on? > > Characters like . cause problems because they've always been illegal. > For example, chown accepts a syntax of 'chown user.group' because . > is illegal. So chown breaks when you have a username like s.avery > or m.thibaut. > > The shell has certain expectations about when and where # will be used, too.
Err, these only seem to apply to situations where a web user maps down to an underlying *nix user. FWIW, I'd never allow users of any system anything other than whatever is considered current for *nix login names, just because of the possibility (read: likelihood) that my system would get maintained by someone who I wouldn't trust to Do Things Properly wrt char escapes, etc. Ben
