Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Kernel Hacks & Weird Filenames
Message-ID: <7848@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 6 May 88 19:10:18 GMT
References: <13041@brl-adm.ARPA> <2630003@hpsal2.HP.COM>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 16

In article <2630003@hpsal2.HP.COM> morrell@hpsal2.HP.COM (Michael Morrell) writes:
>/ hpsal2:comp.unix.wizards / jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) /  5:55 pm  Apr 30, 1988 /
>The problem with this argument is:  Just what is a printable character?
>HP-UX has the routine isprint (most likely all other Un*xes have it too).
>So it is not too hard to determine what a printable character is (HP-UX's
>implementation includes NLS as well).

What constitutes a "printable character" is inherently locale-dependent.
Since the OS kernel has to support multiple concurrent locales, it is not
in a position to make a correct determination about character printability.

People who argue that the kernel should "help" the user seem to have
missed out on what is REALLY helpful and to have instead settled on an
overly restricted model of what users need to do.  The UNIX designers
got this exactly right.  The "value added resellers" on the other hand
seem to let marketing yoyos make their technical decisions for them.