Re: lynx-dev dev.23: extended INCLUDE syntax broken for DOSPATH

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, Vlad Harchev wrote:
> 
>  I afraid we have to expect similar behaviour on VMS port - as I understand,
> the VMS filename always contains ':'. I see several variants (not mutually
> exclusive)
> 1) On DOS - if that ':' is preceeded with letter and nothing else (perhaps
> spaces), we can treat such first ':' as part of the name, and expect option 
> names to start after second ':'.
> 2) I don't know anything about VMS filesystem approach, so here is conditional
> solution:
>  If each VMS pathname contain _exactly_ one colon, then we can expect option
> names after second colon, otherwise 
>  disable this functionality for VMS (since this feature is designed for ISPs
> that provide shell account with lynx, and IMO there are few ISPs with VMS
> installed, then this decision won't be painful)
> 
> What do you think?

3) Choose a different syntax, with a different delimiter!
There are bound to be problems with ':' not matter how cleverly
you try to detect which ':' is part of a filename and which isn't.

The delimiter should be unlikely to normally occur in filenames on
any known system.  It can still be a legal (but unusual) filename
character, in that case files with that character just cannot be
used here - not a big hardship.  That's better than introducing
an escape mechanism (which would create more confusion).

   Klaus