Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: MPW & spaces in pathnames
Message-ID: <14457@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 30 Dec 90 10:55:38 GMT
References: <1990Dec27.173958.18413@CAM.ORG> <1990Dec29.221358.18317@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Electronics for Imaging, San Bruno CA
Lines: 30

In article <1990Dec27.173958.18413@CAM.ORG> pascal@CAM.ORG (Pascal Gosselin)
writes:
>>Turns out that the script was built in a way that didn't allow SPACES
>>in path.  I happened to still have my HD named to the default "Macintosh HD"
>>(yes, A little pathetic, oh well!) and this causing all of the problems.

In article <1990Dec29.221358.18317@chinet.chi.il.us> laird@chinet.chi.il.us
(Laird J. Heal) writes:
>Wherever there is a file name, put double-quotes around anything that is
>not wild-carded (? or option-x) and almost all of your troubles will be
>solved.

Fine if all you're doing is typing, or writing scripts intended to work
on a single system configuration.  Building file names out of arguments
and variable expansions, and storing them in variables or aliases,
makes the problem much more complicated.  I know how to solve this in
csh on UNIX; I've been using MPW Shell since before it was released and
I still don't know a consistent solution for it.  As a result, I am
making all my development hard drives and all program source files
single words.

I wish that MPW Shell would simply get smarter about multi-word file
names, perfomrinag an internal parse-check-and-combine operation when
the current simplistic approach gives a file system error on a partial
name.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com

"Religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid
 of government." -- James Madison