Re: Spaces in file and directory names.

[Gisli Ottarsson <gisli master adams com>]

I am aware that many systems have allowed spaces in file names for a
considerable time, but had not seen their use promoted much until MS
Windows.  Although the gratuitous dump on MS should have been more
accurate, this wasn't really the point of my message.

Nor was it my point that spaces couldn't or shouldn't be handled by
the various GUIs and shells.  I know full well about quoting and
completion and that many shells handle this quite elegantly, as well
they should.  Unfortunately this will not be a consolation to the poor
schmuck that tries to do the following in a tcsh

 % touch "First File" "Second File"
 % foreach file (*)
 %   ls $file
 % end
 ls: First: No such file or directory
 ls: File: No such file or directory
 ls: Second: No such file or directory
 ls: File: No such file or directory

Spaces at the end of file names are also good for a few laughs.

I am not advocating disallowing spaces in file names, just suggesting
that Gnome should not promote this bad idea.  I am pleased to hear
that the standard gnome directories will not contain names with
embedded spaces.

Gisli


>>>>> On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 13:25:29 -0700 (MST), you said:
 
  Gisli> The directory hierarchy that is visible in the file manager
  Gisli> application has several directories with spaces in them: My
  Gisli> Documents, My Sounds and Spread Sheets.  Considering that
  Gisli> spaces in filenames may be chief in a range of silly ideas
  Gisli> that have come out of MicroSoft I would hope that the gnome
  Gisli> project would not follow this lead.

  MG> The Mac had spaces long before windows did.

  MG> But shouldn't our GUI tools work with all characters that are
  MG> supported by the file system?  Then we encourage people to not use the
  MG> spaces.

  MG> UNIX actually allows more characters in file/directory names than
  MG> Windows does.


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