[Python-Dev] PEP 376 : Changing the .egg-info structure

[MRAB]

Glenn Linderman wrote:
> On approximately 5/16/2009 11:58 AM, came the following characters from 
> the keyboard of P.J. Eby:
>> At 11:17 AM 5/16/2009 -0700, Glenn Linderman wrote:
>>> On approximately 5/16/2009 9:55 AM, came the following characters 
>>> from the keyboard of P.J. Eby:
>>>> At 06:06 PM 5/16/2009 +0200, Tarek Ziadé wrote:
>>>>> Ok I've changed the PEP with all the points you mentioned, if you want
>>>>> to take a look.
>>>> Some notes:
>>>> 1. Why ';' separation, instead of tabs as in PEP 262?  Aren't 
>>>> semicolons a valid character in filenames?
>>>
>>>
>>> Why tabs?  Aren't tabs a valid character in filenames?
>>> (hint: Both are valid in POSIX filenames, neither are valid in 
>>> Windows filenames)
>>
>> ";" *is* valid in Windows filenames, actually.  Tabs aresn't.
> 
> 
> Oops.  Guess I got that crossed with valid email address characters...
> 
> But I should probably have stated my point... that since there are no 
> characters that are not illegal in file names on every platform, except 
> "/" and NULL, that some mention should be made, that splitting the line 
> on ; (or TAB) isn't necessarily the correct parsing technique... rather 
> that the line should be parsed from the right end, and the remainder 
> used as a the filename, as the numbers at the end would not have ; or 
> TAB as legal characters within them.  Or else some escaping mechanism 
> needs to be defined.  Or else the ; or TAB will be illegal in names used 
> in the RECORD (which would be limiting, although not significantly so, 
> in my opinion, but others may have other opinions).
> 
FYI, on RISC OS '/' is a valid filename character and '.' is used as the
directory separator.

I'd probably say that TAB is s reasonable character to use, even though
it's OK in POSIX; after all, should anyone really be using a control
character in a filename?