Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames [LWN.net]

Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Posted Mar 25, 2009 16:50 UTC (Wed) by epa (subscriber, #39769)
In reply to: Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames by mgross
Parent article: Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Typically, the simpler and more obvious the idea, the longer it takes to overcome resistance and be implemented. (See for example making relatime the default, or the .desktop file security problems discussed a little while back on LWN.)

Some will argue that the answer is user education (teach your users not to use bad characters in filenames), and perhaps even a cron job you can run on your PDP-11 overnight to look for filenames containing these characters and send a message via local mail to the user responsible. Furthermore, if it was good enough for V7 UNIX, it's good enough for us now. (Note that in Plan 9, there are sensible restrictions on characters in filenames; but it's common for followers of a particular system or language to become rabidly conservative, even when the original designers of the system have moved on.)

In other words it is sheer inertia, and reluctance by any one Unix-like system to add such a feature when the others do not. You can bet that if Linux added a filename character check, it would immediately be branded 'broken' by many BSD or Solaris enthusiasts - not all, but certainly those that make the most noise online.

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Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Posted Mar 26, 2009 2:19 UTC (Thu) by dirtyepic (guest, #30178) [Link] (1 responses)

Also see: "If it was such a good idea, someone else would have done it already. Therefore it must be flawed".

Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames

Posted Mar 26, 2009 15:23 UTC (Thu) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw)

I'm well aware that this is different than the historical past. But that doesn't make past decisions correct for the present. So, let's chat about the pros and cons; I believe that the cons for "anything goes" now outweigh the pros.