On Tue, Mar 14, 2006 at 10:03:56PM -0600, Florin Iucha wrote: > 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: > > > 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. Sorry, I was sloppy in both my thinking and my phrasing... In the real world, yes, it's unambiguous. I was intending to refer to some hypothetical world in which spaces can be used both as a separator and as an element in file names without requiring any of the various workarounds (quoting, escape sequences, xargs...) that have to be used to deal with filenames that contain spaces in the real world. > PS: No mouse was used when composing and sending this message ;) Likewise. :) -- The freedoms that we enjoy presently are the most important victories of the White Hats over the past several millennia, and it is vitally important that we don't give them up now, only because we are frightened. - Eolake Stobblehouse (http://stobblehouse.com/text/battle.html)