command line options (UNIX-specific)

[Dave Decot]

> >Why don't we bite the bullet and change our kernels to refuse
> >to create files whose names begin with a hyphen or contain
> >non-printing characters (unless special arrangements are made
> >by the user to permit it)?
>
> You'll only have to change them right back again when you want
> to sell a system in Europe and people begin to insist on, at
> least, ISO 8859/1.

No, that's not how I would implement it.  Apparently you are taking
the phrase "non-printing characters" to refer simply to those from the
ASCII character set; I'm not.

For instance, the "special arrangements" I mentioned above could be a system
call that takes a array of 32 8-bit bytes, the 256 bits representing which
characters are to be permitted in file names.  The kernel would save
this array, and use it to check each character in the basename when
creating a new directory entry.  More bytes would be needed to support
multibyte character sets.

>If you can put umlauts in your file why shouldn't the file name also
> have an umlaut if your terminal supports it ?

It should.  The method above, for instance, wouldn't preclude it.

> If memory serves me correctly, ATT have a French and German
> Application Environment available since 5.3.1 and according to
> information from them at that time the support was at the
> kernel level, which implies that one could create a file with
> a French or German name.....well mabye not.....they also
> mentioned the utilities that were changed to provide 8-bit
> support, rm was not one of them. This may have changed since.

Eight-bit file names have always been supported by the HP-UX kernels;
our modifications to the AT&T & BSD shells and other utilities have made
it transparent to create and use eight-bit names.  (The traditional shells
used the eighth bit for tagging quoted characters.)

HP provides a generic native language support environment in which we
only need to ship additional data files for each new supported language,
and there is no need for separate "Application Environments" for each
language.  When we are certain that it's easy enough to do, we will
probably even make it possible for customers to create their own custom
environments.

> BTW - I thought HP were the first to come up with an
> international 8-bit system for Europe - are you guys having
> second thoughts ?

No.  HP is fully commmited to supporting the needs of international
HP-UX customers, not only in Europe, but also in the Far East, the
Middle East, and Africa.

Dave Decot			Hewlett-Packard Company
decot%hpda at hplabs.hp.com	Cupertino, CA  95014

Disclaimer: This message is for informational purposes only.  It represents
the opinions of the author, and is not an official HP statement.