Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2003 22:10:20 -0500 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: Walter <walterk1@earthlink.net>, Questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: handling non-printable characters in file names Message-ID: <3E41D21C.30207@potentialtech.com> References: <3E41A24E.9090607@earthlink.net> <15937.47061.743702.496178@guru.mired.org> <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com> <15937.51721.287955.421825@guru.mired.org>
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Mike Meyer wrote: > In <3E41BD21.9020508@potentialtech.com>, Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.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 that >>>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? > > 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 would happen if you tried to extract an archive where the filenames had \x00 in them? Wouldn't be much worse than mkisofs when it can't figure out an iso9660 name for a file. > 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? Don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to open it. I'm talking about restricting the _creation_ of filenames. >>You don't think that would be useful? Do you really think admins would >>mind? I think it would be very helpful - I'd disallow whitespace right >>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. That's why I want to restrict it! The biggest problems I have is with fileservers that are for Mac, Windows, and Unix clients all. They are always creating files that the other two systems can't easily use! > 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. Use underscores, capitilization, dashes, ... we're not talking about the end of the world here. > 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... That's another good reason to restrict it ... so you can't create files such as '*' and '?' and similar. > 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. No, not the filesystem, certain servers. At the discretion of the sysadmin. Power to the sysadmins!! -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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