On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 7:28 PM, Erik Christiansen <dvalin@internode.on.net> wrote:
On 17.07.14 17:57, h wrote:
Just out of interest I regularly use '_', and have not had a problem. Russell, is this a character you would say can cause trouble? What sort of trouble does it cause?
FWIW, my response is "Nah", after using '_' intensively for a couple of decades as a universal replacement for spaces, in preference to '-'.
Incidentally, CVS uses ',' intensively in filenames, without harm. (And I've used that VCS exclusively for a decade or two, in industry, and found it very robust.)
I'd have the same response to someone using _ instead of a space. Why bother? 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. 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. 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. 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! / Brett