Re: ":" in filename

[Eric Blake <ebb9 at byu dot net>]

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According to Brian Dessent on 3/24/2006 8:51 PM:
> 
> The colon is used by NTFS to signify alternate data streams.  You can
> google for more information about this, e.g.
> <http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-multiple.htm>.

And that would explain how I managed to create an undeletable file the
other day.  I had been wondering what the explanation was.  Mainly for
archive purposes, the sharutils upstream maintainer made the mistake of
creating a file named ":getpo" in CVS a while ago (which he has now
renamed to "getpo.sh" because of my undeletable file problem).  But when
"cvs up" grabs a new file, it first names it ".new.<filename>", in this
case, ".new.:getpo".  So my "cvs up" failed because the file ".new.:getpo"
didn't exist to be renamed to ":getpo", but at the same time, Windows had
just created a ".new." file including the trailing dot.  And it was
practically undeletable because trailing dots normally can't exist, so no
cygwin functions could reach it.  I finally got rid of the problem file by
using the file's alternate 8.3 name, "new~1", but it sure threw me for a
loop trying to figure out how to delete the file.

It would be nice if cygwin could be more proactive in recognizing : as
invalid in non-managed mounts, rather than passing the : on to the Windows
filename functions, in order to avoid the creation of undeletable
filenames such as ".new." via the help of a colon, but I can live with the
current behavior if adding such a check would slow down the common case.

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             ebb9@byu.net
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