On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 06:06:04PM -0600, Dave Sherohman wrote: > On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 04:03:00PM -0600, Florin Iucha wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 03:05:14PM -0600, Ed Wilts wrote: > > > Blanks in file names are evil...just pure evil. > > > > Why_do_you_say_that?_File_names_are_a_part_of_the_user_interface_and_why_should_I_bend_my_eyes_around_the_capabilities_(or_lack_thereof)_of_the_machine/program?_If_the_script_crashed_because_the_file_name_was_longer_than_14_characters_would_you_say_that_to_be_evil_as_well? > > Because the shell (or other command interpreter) needs to be able to > reliably distinguish characters which are part of an argument from > those which separate arguments. Given the command > > rm blackmail letter > > humans can't reliably determine whether the intent is to delete one > file named "blackmail letter" or two separate files named "blackmail" > and "letter", so how do you expect something as simple-minded as bash > to do so? Sure humans can, and bash can too. The meaning is unambiguous. > memory. Reliable determination of "this space is part of a filename, > that space separates filenames" is not readily solvable (and I tend > to suspect that it's not solvable at all). Ok, so the machine cannot guess which of the two conveniences I mean to request at a given moment. It is not an algorithmic problem - (think of touch instead of rm), so I expect a smart interactive shell to prompt me to disambiguate, yet to specifiy one mandatory separator in interpreted mode and be done with it. florin PS: No mouse was used when composing and sending this message ;) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature Url : http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20060314/d6a6dc63/attachment.pgp