Re: LMTX: different output if dots are used in the file name

[Alan Braslau <braslau.list@comcast.net>]

On Wed, 7 Jul 2021 21:57:27 +0200
Ulrike Fischer <news3@nililand.de> wrote:

> Am Wed, 7 Jul 2021 12:25:29 -0600 schrieb Alan Braslau:
> 
> > Windows, I believe, does not take kindly to filenames containing
> > multiple dots.
> > 
> > Therefore, Hans never uses such filenames and does not expect them,
> > either, so I am not surprised that this yields unpredictable
> > results.
> > 
> > An unfortunate side-effect of dealing with Windows.  
> 
> Sorry but this is nonsense. I have seen many files with lots of dots
> in windows and it works fine.

Not nonsense: some MS/Windows filesystems couldn't deal with multiple
dots in the filename. That my *now* be history, but wasn't.

What is clear is that (perhaps due to this legacy), many programs and
packages do not expect to find filenames having many dots. Indeed,
*some* filesystem specifications even use "." to delimit file system
hierarchy (similarly like / and \). Lua also uses this in table
specifications, as does MetaPost for token separation, not mentioning
structures in C (and C++). The bottom line is that using "." in a
filename is best to be avoided, as are spaces in order to avoid
surprises.

As to "nonsense" and "Windows bashing", give me a break!

(and for Hans, the VMS ";" version specification is a different
feature).

Alan
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