Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: use of : instead of /
Message-ID: <10735@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 14 Aug 89 21:53:12 GMT
References: <8908130642.AA28955@trout.nosc.mil>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 11

In article <8908130642.AA28955@trout.nosc.mil> delton@pro-carolina.cts.com (Don Elton) writes:
>They were going to require nulls as separators but the use of multiple chars
>as separators was a compromise.  Which way would you like to see it done to
>support using "/" and/or ":" in a file or directory's name?

Nulls would have been utterly horrible!  Think of the problems in using
that from C programs.

Whenever a character is given a special meaning, e.g. delimiter, one
should at the same time make provisions for an escape mechanism so that
the special meaning can be removed when necessary.