Subject: Bug: save to a file named *

From: Joe Brennan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 94 10:57:20 EDT

I see the save command (when viewing a message) lets me save to a file
named *.  One of our users did this by accident, and decided to fix it
afterwards by doing rm mail/*, and even though we have rm aliased to
rm -i, he told it OK to do it.

* is an unlikely filename to want; some other special characters would
also be "fun" for novices to handle in filenames.  Do you all feel like
imposing a character test for file creation?

Joseph Brennan     Academic Information Systems
                   Columbia University in the City of New York
                   [email-masked]

---

From: Putnam Barber <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 09:01:21 -0700 (PDT)

I second Joe Brennan's thought.  My particular version was less dramatic.  
I created a file with a $ in its name, and found that unix has ideas 
about such files that DOS never dreamed.  After several discussions with 
others who were as baffled as I, a stranger who used unix all the time 
gave me the clues I needed to work with and then delete the file.

It would have been nice to have been saved from myself in this instance.  
Even more so if I'd strayed down the path Brennan's user followed!

Putnam Barber
Seattle

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 22:37:52 +0000

> imposing a character test for file creation?

^R wouldn't let me type in "/mnt/a:" - it baulked at the ":". That's a bug.

Charlie Brady * (W) [email-masked] * (H) [email-masked]
"Make it as simple as possible - | Tel: (02) 413 6838 ____Telectronics__| /\__
  but no simpler"   Einstein, A  | Fax: (02) 413 6868 Pacing Systems    \/

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 16:41:54 -0700 (PDT)

Charlie,

There are some definite inconsistencies in what folder names are allowed 
currently.  Thanks for the report!

--DLM 

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA