Re: Apostrophe in argv

[Mario Becroft <mb@tos.pl.net>]

On Thu, 21 May 1998, Guido Flohr wrote:

> Not the MiNTLib has to be patched but the above mentioned modern
> desktops.  This `filename quoting' stuff is simply a bad idea
> which should be abandoned.  As far as I can see it the story

I think we are pretty much stuck with filename quoting as far as GEM is
concerned, since everything seems to be supporting it now. I still don't
understand why it is chosen to do it this way, but it just seems to be the
way it is. Remember you can still put apostrophes in the quoted filenames
by using something like 'mario''s files' for "mario's files".

However I think having de-quoting built in to the mintlibs so that apps
cannot avoid it would be a very bad idea. If an app wants to accept quoted
filenames, it will have to support that itself, not expect the library to
do it. Why should it expect the library to do it?

In other words: This whole quoted filename discussion is irrelevant to the
mintlibs. If an app will support quoted filenames the programmer can
program it that way, just like a program can be made to do anything 
else the programmer wants. But the mintlibs need have nothing to do with
it.

And on a related subject:

What was wrong with using underscore characters in filenames
instead of spaces, anyway? I can't think of any real reason why spaces in
filenames could be necessary, IMHO they only make things more confusing!

-- 
Mario Becroft                        Auckland, New Zealand
mb@tos.pl.net                    http://www.pl.net/~mario/      |\__/,|   (`\
Tariland, Atari Support in New Zealand                        _.|o o  |_   ) )
tariland@tos.pl.net     http://www.pl.net/~mario/tariland/ --(((---(((--------