funny characters in filenames

[phil.rice at rand-relay]

From:  Bill.LeFebvre <phil.rice at rand-relay>

This is in response to all the articles that have been suggesting
alternate sets of legal characters for file names, and specifically
in response to James Bray @ bbn-unix.

1)  Restricting the characters to the range of printable ASCII
characters (>= ' ' and <= \177) does not solve the original problem
that started this whole discussion.  If you recall, that discussion
dealt with giving filenames that had shell meta-characters to a
`system'.

2)  The UCB `ls' (as has been pointed out before) has an option (`-b'
if you're interested) so that an `od' of a directory is not necessary
to see unusual file names.  I have no idea what system you normally use.

3)  There are THREE illegal characters in 4.1BSD filenames.  Two have
been mentioned previously: '\0' and '/'.  '\257' is also illegal (this
is a slash with the eighth bit on).

4)  I have always been disgusted with operating systems that restrict
file names in unnecessary manners.  Unix is the ONLY operating system
that I have found that places no arbitrary restrictions on file names.
The three restricted characters are forbidden for very obvious reasons.
Anything else would be unnecessary.  I may agree with disallowing
characters with the eighth bit on, but all the other restrictions seem
totally arbitrary and unnecessary.  Unix has never taken the "protect
the moron" attitude before, let's not start it now!

5)  I'm getting sick and tired of seeing messages about file names.  We
have beaten the topic to death.  Shall we go on to something a little
more interesting?

				William LeFebvre
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