From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!mcnc!rti!trt
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: rm ABC*
Article-I.D.: rti.1021
Posted: Wed Feb 16 10:24:27 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 13:08:14 1983
References: turtleva.160

Strangely named files have resulted in many wasted hours, much confusion,
and many uninteresting net articles (such as this one).
So please consider the following proposal:

	UNIX should accept only filenames with printable characters.

More specifically, the kernel's namei should verify that all characters
in the filename are 'isprint', as defined by <ctype.h>.
In my experience, filenames with weird characters are *always* mistakes.
(Hmm, sometimes they have been intentional ... and malicious.)

I am going to change some local namei()s as an experiment.
But, really, what problems could there be compared
to the huge nuisance we have currently?
	Tom Truscott