Kernel Hacks & Weird Filenames

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <11238 at mimsy.UUCP> chris at mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>>>(`ls' prints `?' for control characters; `ls|cat -v'
>
>Well, there is the problem!  You are using the Other Leading Brand! :-)
>4BSD ls, whatever its faults, does this magic translation, but only

Ok, I'll take that to mean that you agree that there is a problem
with displaying possibly random control characters that might be in
filenames, and that it needs to be fixed somewhere.  That leaves the
question of where...
 a) all user programs under all conditions.
 b) some user programs under all conditions.
 c) some user programs under some conditions.
 d) the kernel.
It is obviously too late for (a) unless open() and creat() become library
routines and everything is re-compiled, (b) would create a situation where
some programs could not access some files. (c) apparently "works for
you" but I don't agree that it is a good solution.  What if my "terminal"
is actually another computer that is logged on and executing a script?
If I want filenames that I can actually use to access files, I would
have to execute ls|cat.  Isn't that more than a little obtuse?  This is
much more likely for me than a situation where I would want to draw
smiley-faces with a certain terminal's character set in my filenames.

I am not talking about high-bit characters here, just the ones that have
an ascii-defined meaning of something other than a printable character.
As a practical matter, I avoid trouble with high-bits by setting everything
to ignore parity.  There is no such simple solution to control characters
since they do have defined and useful purposes.

 Les Mikesell