Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!unido!ecrcvax!dave
From: dave@ecrcvax.UUCP (Dave Morton)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Re: command line options (UNIX-specific)
Message-ID: <525@ecrcvax.UUCP>
Date: 19 Apr 88 11:28:08 GMT
References: <1036@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <14020029@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Reply-To: dave@ecrcvax.UUCP (Dave Morton)
Organization: ECRC, Munich 81, West Germany
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In article <14020029@hpisod2.HP.COM> decot@hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot) writes:
>Why don't we bite the bullet and change our kernels to refuse
>to create files whose names begin with a hyphen or contain
>non-printing characters (unless special arrangements are made
>by the user to permit it)?
>
You'll only have to change them right back again when you want
to sell a system in Europe and people begin to insist on, at
least, ISO 8859/1. If you can put umlauts in your file why
shouldn't the file name also have an umlaut if your terminal
supports it ?

>There is no particular advantage for users to be allowed to
>use such filenames, but their accidental or naive creation has
>historically and provably caused a good deal of trouble for
>(even advanced) users.  See "a rm question" elsewhere in
>this newsgroup for yet another example.
If memory serves me correctly, ATT have a French and German
Application Environment available since 5.3.1 and according to
information from them at that time the support was at the
kernel level, which implies that one could create a file with
a French or German name.....well mabye not.....they also
mentioned the utilities that were changed to provide 8-bit
support, rm was not one of them. This may have changed since.

BTW - I thought HP were the first to come up with an
international 8-bit system for Europe - are you guys having
second thoughts ?