Korn Shell Programming by Example

Acceptable Filenames

The single most visible attribute of a file is its name. As mentioned in an earlier section, filenames are cataloged in a directory file. The Korn Shell accepts files with names containing letters, numbers, the period, and the underscore. It also accepts characters drawn from the following set: *, &, ?, [, ], -, <, >, $, !, ', and `. However, I would recommend against using them. Believe it or not, it is also legitimate to use a space in a filename. Note that some unusual and unexpected characters are in this set. Using some of the special characters in filenames can lead to difficulty in deleting or accessing files. Common sense is suggested here.

The following example shows potential problems with using characters with ...