Spaces in a file name need to be escaped or quoted when used in a shell. Do you consider spaces to be "unsafe"? Are spaces "special"?
Why would my age matter? I've been putting spaces in file names since I've started using *nix in the '90s, and I've never thought of them as "unsafe". I also used spaces in file names back when I still used Windows (which has supported spaces and long file names since '95). I never thought of them as unsafe in Windows either. Otherwise, Windows folders like "Documents and Settings" and "Program Files" would be considered "dangerous".Originally Posted by Yonut
My Unix systems professor in college threw a fit when I wrote defensive shell scripts with quotes around file name variables. My rationale is that any user might use my script, even someone migrating to/from Windows, where a file name might look like "/mnt/to/windows/Documents and Settings/Joe Bob/Cat Video!.wmv". Better to support "unsafe" characters than to force a user to rename their files only because your script can't handle them.
