gnu-arch-users
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [Gnu-arch-users] ANNOUNCE: Spaces in filenames, finished


From: chth
Subject: Re: [Gnu-arch-users] ANNOUNCE: Spaces in filenames, finished
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 08:36:49 +0100

> I am _delighted_ that filenames with spaces can finally
> be handled correctly, that was a serious deficiency I noted earlier.
> Thanks for your hard work!!
> 
> However, I'm a little mystified.  Why does the tla output by
> default use these escape sequences, even when all you
> want is a list of files?  Embedding the escaping mechanism
> in the output (instead of just the internal storage) adds various
> complexities to shell scripts, and you can be certain that people will
> forget to add the option where needed.

I had to made a cut somewhere, like tom saied the default is better to
be syntacticly unambiguous. There are serveral commands which produce
more than 1 filename per line or do even more complicated things
(symlink changes etc.). I also considered to add a --escaped option and
do not escape output by default. But I do NOT want a inconsistent user
interface where one has to remind which commands take --unescaped and
which take --escaped option.

The 'tla tree-lint -t ...' was prolly the most prominent example, but
even that is seldom needed (only when one sets up a new archive from an
existing project) and if one forget the the --unescaped it will not
become unnoticed.

Conclusion: The other way around would just yield other people wanting
it different and is a syntactically weaker. The infrastructure is there
now and changes with the defaults can be made easy but you have to think
carefully if it really makes sense.

Better solution (i just had this idea now): it could be easy to make tla
accept escaping in commands which take a filenames like 'add',
'delete'and 'move'. If noone complains I just add that for the next
version.


        Christian




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]