Re: Bug#99807: diff doesn't handle filenames with spaces (fwd)

[Miles Bader]

Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
> One possibility to handle the problem in general is to adopt the
> 'shell' quoting style of GNU ls.  This is upward compatible with
> POSIX.  E.g.:

Personally, I think it'd be easier to read, and simpler to implement, if
diff just used a backslash before each odd character.

The reason I think it's easier to read is that I (and I think most unix
programmers) automatically parse backslash as meaning `quoted/special
character follows', whereas true quoted strings are fairly uncommon in
output, so I find myself wondering whether the quotes are part of the
filename or not.  People don't generally spend a lot of time staring at
diff filenames, so the extra verbosity in extreme cases probably doesn't
matter very much.

-Miles
-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.  At night the ice weasels come.  --Nietzsche