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From: Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Long filenames in DOS/Windows and Unix/Linux
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2024 17:27:34 -0700
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
> On Tue, 03 Sep 2024 16:10:42 -0700, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>>> On Tue, 03 Sep 2024 15:16:36 -0700, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>>> For example, I might type something like:
>>>> 
>>>>     for file in * ; do cp -p $file $file.bak ; done
>>>
>>> It’s quite easy to fix that to work with spaces in file names.
>> 
>> I wouldn't call it "quite easy".
>
> As easy as this, in Bash at least:
>
>     IFS=$'\n'
>
> I’ve been told elsewhere that $'\n' is also valid in the latest Posix 
> spec.

Not bad -- but of course that's not all you have to do.

I tried it just now.  My first attempt was

    IFS='\n' for file in * ; do cp -p $file $file.bak ; done

but that's a syntax error ("for" is a shell keyword, not a command).
Second attempt:

    IFS='\n' ; for file in * ; do cp -p $file $file.bak ; done

but that leaves IFS set to its new value in my interactive shell.

Either of these seems to work:

    ( IFS='\n' ; for file in * ; do cp -p $file $file.bak ; done )

    { IFS='\n' ; for file in * ; do cp -p $file $file.bak ; done }

That's still more trouble than it's worth *for me*.  It handles
99+% of real-world cases, but I expect it would fail if a file had
a newline in its name.  (Actually a quick experiment indicates that
that seems to work.  I don't know how or why.)  I have other ways of
handling this kind of thing if I need 100% reliability regardless of
any funny characters in file names (Perl, readdir).  And the simple
"for file in *" handles 99% of the cases that I personally have to
deal with.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */