Mark Weaver wrote:
>
> Ok...since you've said I will believe it. But then how does one navigate
> to these dir's that have spaced names, or how would one open such a file
> from a command line? Every time I've ever tried this, with the exception
> of doing it with Wine (and even then most times it fails), I get a message
> telling that there isn't any such file or directory.
>
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2000 civileme spake passionately saying!
>
> > On Wednesday 13 December 2000 02:08, you wrote:
> > > Wait...I thought spaces "were/are" illegal in *nix?
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > Apparently Corel shares your thought. It is the same for the *.wpd files--no
> > spaces allowad. But I DO have directories and filenames with spaces, and
> > they work OK. It is easy to create or handle them from the GUI, but from a
> > command line....
> >
> > touch mark\ a\ blank #will make a file with blanks in the filename
> > rm mark\ a\ blank will remove it
> >
> > Civileme
I've been around opsys's/opsyses (oh Hell what is the plural??) of
various flavours for nigh on 30 years - I've just spent an hour
going through a bunch of manuals looking for filename definitions
- in every case the rules have been "Alphanumeric only" and defines
those characters as:
A-Z, a-z, 0-9,
and certain "punctuation characters" (tilde, underscore and period)
In 6 cases there is an explicit admonition _NOT_ to use the SPACE
character.
On going back to "The Unix Programming Environment", I find only two
rules: (I can't find my copy of "The UNIX Programmers Manual")
1 A filename may consist of a maximum of 14 printable characters
2 A filename may consist of almost any character - common sense
says you should only use those which are printable.
None of my *nix documentation actually tells which characters are
explicitly illegal but does say that 'certain' characters must be
'handled' by means of 'escaping' but again I cannot find a definition
of those characters which require 'special handling'.
An interesting subject this, particularly on a newbie list !! I know
that during these past 30-odd years, any tutoring/training etc in
which I have taken part (both provider or student) that the space
character should not be used in a filename.
One manual suggests that a test for legality is whether the output
of program1 may be used as the input to program2 _WITHOUT_ the need
for special handling of the input to program2.
Question arises out of all this as well, Does the UNIX limitation of
14 character filenames apply to linux? I'm sure I've seen some which
'appear' to have rather more...
Cheers
John
--
ICQ#: 89345394 Mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected"
(The UNIX Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June 1972.)
