Subject: Re: bug#12339: Bug: rm -fr . doesn't dir depth first deletion yet it is documented to do so.

From: Eric Blake <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:51:17 -0600

On 09/07/2012 03:30 PM, Linda Walsh wrote:
>     Not that I believe that, -- I just think most users aren't
> aware or don't care, but that would be the reasoning.   I get it here,
> why would I expect someone who's job is to come up with lame rules that
> defy standard practice (last I looked they were proposing to ban "space"
> (as well as 0x01-0x1f) in file names).

You aren't looking very hard, then.  The proposal currently being
considered by the Austin Group is a ban on newline (and newline only)
from file names, because that is the one and only character whose
presence in file names causes ambiguous output for line-oriented tools.
 Forbidding space and most non-printing control characters was rejected
as impractical.  And even with the proposed ban on newline, it is still
just that - a proposal, and not a hard rule, waiting for implementation
practice to see if it is even doable.

http://www.austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=251

Read the whole thing.  The original poster mentioned a much tighter
bound, but it was shot down, with the _only_ thing being left on the
table under current discussion is _just_ the limitation of newline.

-- 
Eric Blake   [email-masked]    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org