Re: aux.* as filename

[Bob Proulx]

Francky Leyn wrote:
> Would it not be a good idea that all these cases were handled
> correctly by a windows coreutil?

The problem is that cp is just the first place that you have
encountered this problem.  But it does not end with cp.  Every command
in your port, probably hundreds of them, would all need similar
changes.  mv, rm, cat, grep, sed, etc.  The internals are often quite
different in those programs and it would be difficult to maintain
patches to those programs over time as the upstream version evolved.
There is no need for those checks in the upstream version and it would
dirty the code there and so it is unlikely that they would be
accepted and certainly not across all of the projects uniformly.

The compatibility layer in the port is really the place to handle all
of these types of things.  Then this enables a large class of programs
to be ported all in the same way.

Most importantly an MS-Windows user expects prn to be the printer and
expects to be able to copy to it.  The aux device may be a secondary
printer.  If that capability is broken specifically then they have a
bug report that they cannot do expected things on their operating
system.

About the best that can be done in this case is to be aware of what
things the underlying operating system allows and disallows.
Compatibility layers on top of an OS can only do so much to change the
character of it.  In the end you still have to know about the
underlying system.

> c) That under UNIX a warning is issued saying the filename is not Windows
>    compatible. I worked for years under UNIX. Never any problems
>    with filenames. Now that I'm forced to work under Windows, my
>    filesystem is broken at multiple points. I wouldn't have encountered
>    this if I was warned.

[I am worried this next will read harshly.  I did not intend it that
way but am not sure how to lighten it up.  Please read it with the
same smile I wore when I wrote it.]

Look at it from our perspective.  You are complaining about a
MS-Windows deficiency in a GNU mailing list.  What type of response
would someone expect from this?  What would an advocate of GNU and
Unix-like operating systems be expected to say about it?  If we were
in a meeting room I am sure from the crowd we would hear a murmur of
agreement with you about your MS-Windows problems.  Yes from our
perspective MS-Windows has serious problems.  I doubt you would find
too many people here who would disagree.  But nothing we do here can
help you with it other than helping you off of it.  You can't make a
silk purse out of a sows ear.  To build a silk purse start with silk!

On the other hand if you were to open this type of dialog on a
MS-Windows mailing list then I would expect you would find a lot of
sympathetic listeners.  Probably a lot of people on those mailing
lists are also forced as you are to use MS-Windows.  But more usefully
I am sure you can find a lot of good best-practices shared by other
users and developers.

Bob