Re: Excercices

From: Phil Carmody (thefatphil_demunged_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 10/13/04 

Date: 13 Oct 2004 13:32:36 +0300

Frank Kotler <fbkotler@comcast.net> writes:

> Randall Hyde wrote:
>
> > The fact that certain applications cannot handle spaces in filenames is
> > a fault of those applications, not with the concept of spaces in filenames.
>
> One of the things that came to my attention recently, indicating that
> this *is* a problem, came from a would-be HLA user who was getting an
> error message "can't open Program.o", Randy. Not from HLA itself,
> true... downstream from that... (MS)link, IIRC...
>
> > A space is a character, just like most others.
> ...
> > Imagine how people would gripe about a piece of software that wouldn't
> > let you put "A" characters in a filename. Spaces are no different.
>
> "/" and "\" are characters, too. Should I expect to be able to use 'em
> in filenames? Of course not! They're "reserved". Space *was* reserved,
> too, up until... well, I don't know how long this has been going on...

a:\> copy con: "a b"
blah
^Z
a:\> dir
13/10/04 12:21 6 a b

The filesystem in use, FAT on a floppy, was invented in 1976 or 1977.

Of course, it may have been impossible from the shell to create
such files due to the brokenness of the shell, until 1993, but
there are more things creating files than just humans typing at
shells.

Phil 

-- 
They no longer do my traditional winks tournament lunch - liver and bacon. 
It's just what you need during a winks tournament lunchtime to replace lost 
... liver.   -- Anthony Horton, 2004/08/27 at the Cambridge 'Long Vac.'

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