Re: Long filenames in DOS/Windows and Unix/Linux

On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 09:27:44 +0100, Richard Kettlewell wrote:

(I’ll be disappointed in extreme cases of course, e.g. filesystems that
permit ‘/’ in filenames, but the scale of the problem can be minimized.)

The nice thing about Unicode is the alternatives it offers: so you can’t
use “/” in a filename, but you can use “∕” instead.

I think the thing that makes it hard is not the spaces as such, but the
tooling that makes it inconvenient to handle them, which primarily means
Bourne shell parsing rules. The problem basically ceases to exist once
you’re outside the shell ecosystem.
 
The rest of Unix has evolved substantially since the 1970s but shell is
still stuck in this particular trap. It’s like we’re still making making
arrowheads out of flint but everything else from steel.

If you avoid newlines in filenames, Posix shells can cope with anything
else if you set “IFS=$'\n'”.

If you insist on wanting to accept those as well, then I don’t think Posix
is enough, but Bash does have facilities that help you cope.