Re: spaces in html file names...

["Kevin D. Colby" <kevin marcal com>]

Braden N. McDaniel wrote:
> Kevin Colby wrote:
> > Paul Brady wrote:
> > >
> > > I use Webworks Publisher to convert framemaker files to HTML.
> > > Some of the resulting names are large and contain spaces...
> > > like this one:
> > >
> > > "User GuideTOC.fm.html"
> > >
> > > This should translate into:
> > > "User%20GuideTOC.fm.html"
> >
> > Yick!  A kludge, at best.
> 
> How is this a kludge? RFC 1738 makes it pretty clear when and what
> characters should be escaped. Note that the above string (including the
> escaped space character) is what should appear in a URL, *not* what should
> appear in the actual filename. (I think this is probably clear to all
> involved, but just making sure.)

I understood that.

> That said... If these are URLs a human will be expected to type in, get rid
> of the space character. Otherwise, though, I don't see a problem.

I'll get to this point in a minute.

> > > Any way around this without renaming 6000 files?
> >
> > Are the framemaker files named in this manner?
> > If not, complain to Webworks.
> > If they are, rename them first--then convert.
> >
> > You could have a shell script easily rename them
> > without the spaces, but refernces within the
> > files may then be broken.  Of course, a shell
> > script could fix those too (using 'sed'), but
> > sheesh, what a mess.
> >
> > Using spaces in filename for webpages is _begging_
> > for problems.
> 
> That depends on the context in which the pages will be used. Any URL parser
> that can't grok escaped characters is very badly broken.