From: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!rlgvax!guy
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: rm ABC*
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1056
Posted: Thu Feb 17 07:22:25 1983
Received: Thu Feb 24 04:21:08 1983


I agree with you that non-printable characters in filenames are generally
useless.  I believe 4.2BSD prohibits them; some group of Interlisp hackers
or somesuch got upset because they used non-printable characters to simulate
the TENEX/TOPS-20/VMS file version number conventions - 4.2BSD with its
long pathnames permits you to stick ";nnn" at the end for a version number,
but their code had to change.

As far as I am concerned, space through tilde is completely adequate.  If
people get upset about not being able to have a file name ^G^G^G\277xxx,
they should consider all the people on systems where filenames can only
consist of 9 or 12 upper-case alphanumerics, with a period before the last
three characters...

					Guy Harris
					RLG Corporation
				(decvax!duke!mcnc!rlgvax!guy)