Punctuation marks in file names
in [Mac Systems]
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From: Steven Fisher on 16 Jan 2010 23:21 In article <michelle-99E791.13481416012010(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Michelle Steiner <michelle(a)michelle.org> wrote: > In the Finder you try to create a name a file or folder that begins with a > period, you get the following alert: > > You can't use a name that begins with a dot ��.�, because these names > are reserved for the system. Please choose another name. > > That's pretty self explanatory > > Also in the Finder, if you try to put a colon in a file name, you get the > following alert: > > The name <whatever:text.txt" can't be used. Try using a name with > fewer characters, or with no punctuation marks. That's interesting. Didn't it used to just type a slash instead? > First of all, you can't get that alert by trying to create a file name > that's too long, because as soon as you try to exceed the limit, you get a > beep, and no more text can be entered. Secondly, is there any other > punctuation mark, other than the colon (and leading period), that cannot be > used in a file name? It might have trouble with NULL, but I couldn't think of any quick way to enter one. :) Steve
From: Wes Groleau on 17 Jan 2010 00:44 shine wrote: > Michelle Steiner took to the world wide interwebs to proclaim: >> Secondly, is there any other >> punctuation mark, other than the colon (and leading period), that cannot be >> used in a file name? > > Um, why would you want to use punctuation marks in a file name? Just to > be difficult? Start your file names with a hyphen, or end them with a carriage return or space. Makes it hard for newbies to delete them. -- Wes Groleau The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. -- Thomas Jefferson
From: Andrew Templeman on 17 Jan 2010 02:37 Michelle Steiner <michelle(a)michelle.org> wrote: > In article <00A97A51.C9D41CA4(a)SendSpamHere.ORG>, > VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote: > > > I don't know from the Finder but if you want to use certain characters > > in a filename from the command line, you must "escape" it with \. Even > > the \ itself can be a part of the filename if it is escaped: back\\slash > > will show as back\slash. I would think Finder would be smart enough to > > take a filename and, if necessary, escape it for you if it is a > > legitimate char- acter or one that requires that it be escaped to create > > the name. > > Nope; you just can't insert a colon in the file name from the Finder. Because it was the directory separator on the HFS family of file systems from classic MacOS. Traditionally the colon was the only character disallowed. If you look at the files viewed from the unix environment in Terminal for example, files that have a "/" character are shown as a colon, because there the "/" is the directory separator. -- Andy Templeman <http://www.templeman.org.uk/>
From: Paul Sture on 17 Jan 2010 07:46 In article <michelle-99E791.13481416012010(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Michelle Steiner <michelle(a)michelle.org> wrote: > In the Finder you try to create a name a file or folder that begins with a > period, you get the following alert: > > You can't use a name that begins with a dot ��.�, because these names > are reserved for the system. Please choose another name. > > That's pretty self explanatory > > Also in the Finder, if you try to put a colon in a file name, you get the > following alert: > > The name <whatever:text.txt" can't be used. Try using a name with > fewer characters, or with no punctuation marks. > > First of all, you can't get that alert by trying to create a file name > that's too long, because as soon as you try to exceed the limit, you get a > beep, and no more text can be entered. Secondly, is there any other > punctuation mark, other than the colon (and leading period), that cannot be > used in a file name? When doing Save As from Safari, the file name is constructed using the web page title, so in the following example a colon is present. Both Safari's Save As and the subsequent Finder display put a "/" in there, but a command line listing shows that internally it's really a colon: $ ls *.webarchive Haiti earthquake: UN says worst disaster ever dealt with - Telegraph.webarchive This is the url that gave that: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/ haiti/7005853/stub.html> -- Paul Sture
From: shine on 17 Jan 2010 11:58
Wes Groleau took to the world wide interwebs to proclaim: > Start your file names with a hyphen, or end them with a carriage return > or space. Makes it hard for newbies to delete them. Which n00b? The owner of the files or other users on the Mac? Other users can't delete them, anyway. If owner, why can't they delete them easily? They created them. |