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Who on earth insists that? Only Windows programmers, I expect! But it's easy: make sure they're expressible in your syntax, then pass them through as part of the file name. Just like spaces. If there's a problem, you'll get an error back from the OS.



Yes, of course you're right. My apologies, it was a stupid comparison.

Though I still feel it's a bit of "choose your poison". In any language, certain symbols will have special meaning. You pretty much have to pick which ones, and come up with rules about how to let their natural meaning bleed through. With unix shells, one such character is the space, and there's a number of rules about how to let their natural meaning bleed through - but they're all somewhat awkward, and they all need special care.




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