Re: Char to use as separator

[Paul D. Smith]

%% "PATTON, BILLY \(SBCSI\)" <address@hidden> writes:

  pb> I build targets with _  as separators

  pb> <flow>_<proj>_<bb>_<topic>_<target>

  pb> Problem is, any of these names may have a _ in their name
  pb> So separating on _ is a problem
  pb> So many of the chars are special to either shell or makefile

  pb> I've considered using __ that 2 under scores as a separator
  pb> Will this cause a problem within make or sh?

Certainly not.  Make will be happy with any character in a filename
other than: ' ' (space), ':', ';', '#', '$', '='.  And, you can even use
some of those but it gets to be a pain to escape them.

The shell is happy with any character as well, although some are special
and if you choose one you'll have to be careful with quoting; things
like '#', '$', '|', ';', '*', '?', '[', etc.


Certainly double-underscores will work, but what about using dashes (-)
instead?  Or, something else like "+" etc.

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