On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 11:04 AM Lawrence Velázquez <v...@larryv.me> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2025, at 1:23 AM, Collin Funk wrote:
> > If there is a discussion on the POSIX bug tracker to make it a
> > requirement, we can revisit it then, and likely voice objections there.
>
> I think your input would hold some weight, as the suggestion was
> largely driven by one individual who tends to view the standard as
> prescriptive rather than descriptive. The initial proposal was
> rather more radical.
I'm not sure I would use the word 'radical.' It seems rather
polarizing, and it seems like a word I would expect to see on social
media as opposing parties sling their views in an effort to make
things as divisive as possible to drive views and likes. That did not
seem to be David Wheeler's intent.
Wheeler's submission seems to be more practical and founded in a rich
history of bugs when processing filenames. From the description:
POSIX.1-2008 page 60 lines 1781-1786 states that filenames (aka
"pathname component") may contain all characters except <slash> and the
null byte, and this has historically been true. However, this excessive
permissiveness has resulted in numerous security vulnerabilities and
erroneous programs. It also increases the effort to write correct
programs, because correctly processing filenames that include
characters like newline is very difficult (even the expert POSIX
developers have trouble; see 0000248)...
Jeff
