Hello Brett, On Thu, 2014-07-17 at 19:58 +1000, Brett Pemberton wrote:
I'd have the same response to someone using _ instead of a space. Why bother?
Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it, and it is usually painful. There is a classic example, in the way that MS DOS was a bought out QDOS which was a CP/M semi-clone. They did not learn from the past, and made a ripe mess, which still continues with that malware infested ecosystem.
It has been many MANY years since I've found something that doesn't work properly with files with spaces, or any other non [a-zA-Z0-9] characters. People seem to hold grudges against this behavior from decades ago.
There was a reason for not using the space, and methods of coping. It was considered bad form from very early, it goes back to roots of Unix. Know and understand!
I don't like replacing characters because it can only ever be a one way transformation. That _ in a filename, is it a space? An actual underscore? Some other character you converted? Any attempt to use the filename to store useful information is thwarted.
It has significant use in filenames, replacing a space is an excellent example, delimiting the words that make it up, without delimiting the filename. There are other characters that can also be used that way, but also have other uses.
Just give files their proper names, guys. Give it a shot. For some reason you need a colon or a semicolon or a ! in your filename (and there are many valid reasons), just do it! Tab completion still works, filesystem operations still work, the world will not collapse.
Just because it does not fall in a heap does not make it a good idea. That is like the marketing monkey attitude of clicking every link on a web page, and then taking no responsibility for the malarkey that happens.
Saying that using certain characters (exceptions according to POSIX are NUL and forward slash) in filenames will "cause trouble" smells like FUD to me.
If something doesn't work with a legitimate filename, submit a bug!
That says stuff the conventions, which had excellent reasons at their foundations, for cosmetic and transient benefits.
/ Brett
Regards, Mark Trickett