Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Quick Question Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 08:36:25 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 36 Message-ID: References: <67823de8-55d1-4b17-bd06-c50c95410766@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="945944de09706c9b4e29b53c9d2efdc2"; logging-data="24162"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18B+RvPHFM/kHUUuIbIgmuK" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:YVWn1sB3rEUMMbhWpBZnPPGh7jw= sha1:ScTYmbwePJkBaRhm2CxGf09rFzQ= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:68426 "Osmium" writes: > "glen herrmannsfeldt" wrote: >> comp.lang.c-the-whole-c-and-nothing-but-c >> >> Is # legal in a newsgroup name? >> >> If I remember right, the PL/I group is named comp.lang.pl1 because >> comp.lang.pl/i isn't allowed. > > Since addresses start out with http:// it is pretty obvious that a name > containing '/' is going to lead to problems. When making notes in file > names and suchlike my choice for "punctuation belongs here" is '%'. As near > as I know it is bulletproof. In the days before NNTP, news articles were stored locally under a directory typically called /usr/spool/news (news servers might still do this, but end users generally don't have direct access to the server system). Newsgroup names would be split on the '.' character. Article #12345 of comp.lang.c would be stored in the file /usr/spool/news/comp/lang/c/12345 This scheme would not distinguish between comp.lang.pl/i and comp.lang.pl.i, which would logically be under the comp.lang.pl hierarchy. I have no idea whether a name like "comp.lang.pl/i" would have been treated as "comp.lang.pl.i", or would have caused an error. On Unix-like systems, the only characters not permitted in file names (including directory and device names) are '/' (the directory delimiter) and '\0'. Which means you can cause serious confusion by creating a file with a '\n' in its name. -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc. "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"