Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!ncar!bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu!hpoppe
From: hpoppe@bierstadt.scd.ucar.edu (Herb Poppe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Filenames, ARGH!!
Keywords: filenames, csh, spam
Message-ID: <6066@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 90 20:15:29 GMT
References: <591@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>
Sender: news@ncar.ucar.edu
Organization: Scientific Computing Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Lines: 43

In article <591@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> lennox@paris.sw.stratus.com (Craig Scott Lennox) writes:
>
>I'm trying to write a csh for a Mac SE.  Say what you like, but there are some
>times when you need to type commands rather than mouse them.
>
>However, I'm stonewalled atthe beginning:  How can you write an effective
>command interpreter when ANY character -- spaces, tabs, hyphens, underscores,
>colons, etc. can be in your filenames.

In UNIX, filenames can contain any character. (What, you haven't snuck
over to your friends terminal while he was in the bathroom and renamed
all his files to include the ACSII BEL character. It sounds so pretty
when he does an ls!). You do what UNIX csh does: invent "quoting". There
is this kind of quote ("), and this kind (') and of course don't forget (\).
But people always forget to use them in their scripts, or use them
incorrectly so that they never work with those special characters anyway.
(Don't you just love CLLs!).

>Furthermore, with the limit on filename
>length being 31-characters, that could make for some mighty hairy pathnames.

Not sure what you are getting at here. Surely you don't think that Mac
"pathnames" are limited to 31 characters. In fact, I don't believe there
is any limit on the number of folders in a hierarchy, so that Mac
"pathnames" are essentially unlimited no matter how long (or short) the
filenames are. Is that what you meant?

>Are there any accepted or innovative ideas out there to overcome this hassle?  Any
>information would be greatly appreciated (and given credit for!).

Unfortunately, an innovative CLL (one that clearly distinguishes between
language and data) probably wouldn't be acceptable to the cabal that
likes CLLs since it would require more typing, wouldn't be a macro language,
and wouldn't work "just like csh".

And don't ask me what THAT means; I got bored with the idea of inventing
the ultimate CLL years ago. (About the time we started seeing those
nifty machines from Xerox PARC; you know, the ones that use a GUI.)

--
Herb Poppe      NCAR                         INTERNET: hpoppe@ncar.ucar.edu
(303) 497-1296  P.O. Box 3000                   CSNET: hpoppe@ncar.CSNET
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