Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom under Windows

[Waldek Hebisch]

> "Bill Page" <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> | On 6/12/07, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> | 
> | > ...  Also, do you how to pass file names to Windows
> | > utilities in a way that avoid damage due to command line parsing
> | > -- Unix shell has more qouting rules which allow you to pass any
> | > legal charater as part of filename (I plan to add a simple encoder
> | > which quotes all characters that need quoting).  I hope that
> | > Windows has equivalent functionality.
> | >
> | 
> | As far as I know there is no method in Windows that allows to pass
> | all legal characters via the command line. The common method to
> | pass command line arguments with minimal interference from the
> | shell is to enclose them in "quotation marks". To pass a quotation
> | mark itself requires double "" but quotation marks are ignored if used
> | as part  of a file name. The character \ (path separator) and * (wildcard)
> | cannot be used in a file name even when occurring between "...".
> | Comma , space semicolon ; and some other punctuation characters
> | in file names is ok if appearing between " ... ", etc. etc.
> | 
> | It is hard to find a good reference but easy to find complaints. :-)
> | Try:
> | 
> | http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/cmdline_std.mspx
> 
> Indeed.
> 
> My personal opinion is that funny characters (yes, I consider
> whitespace in pathnames as funny) in pathnames are Evil.  We should
> not spend too much resource trying to support Evil beyond reasonable.
> People who like spaces in pathnames should just learn leaving with
> that restriction in Axiom.  Given the choice between Evil and useful
> functionality in Axiom, I don't hesitate one second.
> 

I think that using funny characters in pathnames is stupid.  But
programs that mishandle such names are clearly broken.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch
address@hidden