Filenames with hyphens - UNIX style? Post: 302639173

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The Lounge What is on Your Mind? Filenames with hyphens - UNIX style? Post 302639173 by jlliagre on Friday 11th of May 2012 09:39:44 AM

05-11-2012

Registered User

Unix is very permissive in what it accepts but quite restrictive in what it recommends. Your first reply seemed to imply Windows was too permissive while Unix wasn't. The reality is the opposite. Windows has more restrictions and peculiarities like refusing a file to be named null.h or com0.c, having a colon in its name, having a space as its last character and so on, not to mention the way it preserve case but doesn't allow files with the same name but different cases to stay in the same directory.

In any case, your example obviously violates the POSIX recommendations but is still a valid Unix filename. It is obviously unacceptable to Windows and possibly other OSes and defeat non rock-solid scripts.

If your backup software has issues processing this filename, that's a bug or a limitation of the storage format it uses, the OS or the file system. The venerable tar utility has no issues handling it:

Code:

$ touch 'C:\March report - with summary figures'
$ tar cvf foo.tar *es
a C:\March report - with summary figures 0K
a files 8388K
$ tar tvf foo.tar
-rw-r--r-- 60004/60004      0 May 11 17:14 2012 C:\March report - with summary figures
-rw-r--r--   0/0   8589076 Nov  9 16:07 2011 files
$ mkdir extract
$ cd extract
$ tar xvf ../foo.tar
x C:\March report - with summary figures, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks
x files, 8589076 bytes, 16776 tape blocks
$ ls -l
total 2
-rw-r--r--   1 jlliagre jlliagre       0 May 11 17:14 C:\March report - with summary figures
-rw-r--r--   1 jlliagre jlliagre 8589076 Nov  9  2011 files

About your last request, here are the numbers I got:

0.74% have colons (1242)
0.00% hashes (2 files out of 168522)

Last edited by jlliagre; 05-11-2012 at 10:57 AM..

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mren

mren(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   mren(1)

NAME

       mren - mtools utility to rename an existing DOS file

SYNOPSIS

       mren [-v] sourcefile targetfile

OPTIONS

       Specifies verbose mode.	The new file name is displayed if the name supplied is invalid.

DESCRIPTION

       The  mren command renames an existing file on a DOS file system.  You can also use the mren command to rename directories.  Reasonable care
       is taken to create a valid DOS file name.  If an invalid DOS targetname is specified, the mren command changes the  name  and,  if  the	-v
       option is specified, prompts the user to accept or reject the new name.

       The  path  component of the targetfile argument, if supplied, is ignored.  That is, you cannot use the mren command to move a file from one
       subdirectory to another.

       DOS subdirectory names that contain the '/' or '' separator are supported.  If you use the '' separator or wildcards,	you  must  enclose
       file names in quotes to protect them from the shell.

       The mcd command can be used to establish the device and the current working directory (relative to DOS), otherwise the default is A:.

       Not  all  UNIX  file names are supported in the DOS world.  The mren command may have to change UNIX names to fit the DOS file name conven-
       tions. The following table shows some examples of file name conversions:

       -----------------------------------------------
       UNIX name     DOS name	Reason for the change
       -----------------------------------------------
       thisisatest   THISISAT	file name too long
       file.stuff    FILE.STU	extension too long
       prn.txt	     XRN.TXT	PRN is a device name
       .abc	     X.ABC	null file name
       hot+cold      HOTXCOLD	illegal character
       -----------------------------------------------

RESTRICTIONS

       You cannot use the mren command to move a file from one subdirectory to another.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned: Success.  Failure.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables affect the execution of mren: If set, this variable names the file that contains the name of  the  cur-
       rent mtools working directory as established by the mcd command.  If this variable is not set, the file $HOME/.mcwd is used.

FILES

       Contains  the  name  of	the  current mtools working directory as established by the mcd command.  If this file does not exist, the default
       mtools working directory is A:.  Executable file

SEE ALSO

       Commands: mcd(1), mtools(1)

																	   mren(1)