Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: "Carlos E.R." Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Case Insensitive File Systems -- Torvalds Hates Them Date: Wed, 7 May 2025 14:21:56 +0200 Lines: 45 Message-ID: <4svrelx3dm.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> References: <20250428111242.00007426@gmail.com> <6813f997@news.ausics.net> <68194581@news.ausics.net> <681aa121@news.ausics.net> <3aorelxelu.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net bZmgbBOw7MWfLbj0ozK54wMvXCu7t7IZ8bSlQyHPut5JI/e1tk X-Orig-Path: Telcontar.valinor!not-for-mail Cancel-Lock: sha1:NnajJVw1B0UrGuAZ0+DTj0+up+4= sha256:XWcIHOtR1JBSvbqFZWIqOZihWQZCFcS466TMni8kvvQ= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: es-ES, en-CA In-Reply-To: On 2025-05-07 13:17, The Natural Philosopher wrote: > On 07/05/2025 11:12, Carlos E.R. wrote: >> On 2025-05-07 12:00, Richard Kettlewell wrote: >>> not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes: >>>> Rich wrote: >>>>> Computer Nerd Kev wrote: >>>>>> It could have been the same with ext* forbidding newlines (also tmpfs >>>>>> etc.).  Then you'd only have to worry about handling newlines in the >>>>>> rare case of reading from some non-Linux filesystems like UFS. >>>>> >>>>> Could ext* have forbade newlines?  Yes.  But that would have gone >>>>> against years of Unix tradition at the time had it done so.  Since >>>>> Linux began as a "clone of Unix" it was only natural for it to inherit >>>>> Unix traditions as to filenames (any byte value other than ASCII NULL >>>>> and ASCII forward slash being allowed). >>>> >>>> Well the original quote from Torvalds was about case insensitive >>>> filesystems, which also already have a tradition, but he doesn't >>>> like them, with good reasons. I feel there are valid reasons to >>>> dislike newlines in filenames too. Maybe that would have been too >>>> radical for a UNIX-based OS filesystem, but in practice I can't see >>>> how it would have caused much trouble, and it would have avoided >>>> needing lots of special handling for newlines in software. >>> >>> Forbidding newlines in extfs and its successors would be straightforward >>> indeed - no harder than forbidding ‘/’ in filenames. But as well as >>> swimming against the Unix tide it wouldn’t actually eliminate the >>> higher-level problem that shell copes badly with filenames with spaces, >>> newlines, etc, since there’s more to life than Linux’s native >>> filesystem. Early versions of Linux used the Minix filesystem, and today >>> the kernel includes a large collection of ‘foreign’ filesystems. >>> >>> Using almost any other language than shell, on the other hand, makes the >>> problem go away. >> >> Except if you hardcode a filename inside a C program, for instance. >> You still have to escape the quotes. >> > That's a different issue: The solution is to construct the name as an > octal character array. LOL! What a solution. Very readable :-D -- Cheers, Carlos.