Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!smsc.sony.com!dce
From: dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Spaces Between Words in Files
Keywords: How and Why?
Message-ID: <1990Nov17.045959.392@smsc.sony.com>
Date: 17 Nov 90 04:59:59 GMT
References: <1990Nov16.200510.22830@cbnewsk.att.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Sony Microsystems Corp, San Jose, CA
Lines: 34

In article <1990Nov16.200510.22830@cbnewsk.att.com> abar@cbnewsk.att.com (jerome.t.abar..jr) writes:
>The problem is a file that has two words with a space between
>them, such as "foo bar".  How does a file like this get created,
>and how do you read it?

The only hard part is getting a shell to pass the name through.
Standard shells (derived from sh and csh) allow you to do this
by putting quotes around the name.  So, I can create a file called
"foo bar" by saying

	vi "foo bar"

Single quotes ('') will also work, as will just escaping the space,
as in

	vi foo\ bar

>I've found that I can erase the file by using rn f*, but it doesn't
>work when I try cat f*.

All I can think of is that your version of cat isn't a program, but
an incorrectly-written alias, function, or shell script.

A correctly-written piece of shell code will always assume the
worst about what data the user gives it, and will use some form
of quoting.  For example:

	for i in "$@"
	{
		process_file "$i"
	}

will work fine no matter what the arguments contain. (Yes, I am
assuming a modern shell where "$@" works correctly.)