Re: [WinMac] re: Burning CD on PC w/ Mac charset in filenames
Bruce Johnson(johnson[at]Pharmacy.Arizona.EDU)
Fri, 29 Oct 1999 11:01:57 -0700
Changhsu P. Liu wrote:
>
> If you intend to have files accessed on PC, don't use any illegal names (to
> Windows). I once made a mistake to put important files/folders with a *
> ending, and all of them were not openable on PC that I had to make another
> CD with correction. It's strange that PC doesn't allow "?" for a filename
> which is a very good symbol for files unknown... I can understand why "/"
> or "\" is not allowed but I cannot understand some other other symbols not
> being allowed (e.g., <, >, :, |, *).
* and ? are used as wildcard characters by DOS, and hence, Windows. <,
> and | are all redirect symbols, meaning 'put your output here' (>) rather than the screen, 'take your input from here' (<) rather than the keyboard, and 'Use the output of this program as the input of this other' or a pipe, (|).
':' is not allowed on Macs because it is the (normally) invisible
directory separator , like '\' is in DOS or '/' is in Unix.
Basically, each of these characters is interpreted as a command to the
file system when encountered on a command line. File system actions
(even on the Mac and in Windows) proceed internally _as though_ they
were command line functions. (Not a _perfect_ analogy, but close enough
for these purposes), hence in each case the OS doesn't want spurious
commands being issued, hence these characters are not allowed in
filenames.
Unix, of course blithely lets you insert such characters into filenames,
(if you do it right) figuring if you're a wizard enough to use commands
or wildcards in filenames, you're wizard enough to get yourself out of
the trouble you just made for yourself.
--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
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on Fri Oct 29 1999 - 13:09:49 PDT
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