WARNING! No folder name starting with "."
massix
This email is intended to be an help for all of those that (like me) may
fall in trouble while doing bizarre thing on thunderbird ;)
I recently experienced something really bad. I accidentally renamed one
of my personal folder inserting "." (dot) in front of its original name
and you know what happened? Everything seemed working file for awhile, I
kept on using thunderbird for a while, then I closed it and when I
reopened, that folder disappeared!
I don't usually panic in these situations so I went in the directory
structure where all thunderbird data is stored and after some
investigation (few hours) I figured out that a file name starting with
"." in *nix means "Hidden file or folder" so I tried to remove the "."
to all that was referring to that folder and.... Et Voila` Everything
went back to normal.
Hope thil will help someone
Best regards to all
Massix
C A Upsdell
> after some
> investigation (few hours) I figured out that a file name starting with
> "." in *nix means "Hidden file or folder"
This has been a Unix convention for decades. TB is not at fault for
honouring this convention.
Neil Hughes
> WARNING! No folder name starting with "." in Thunderbird for Win Xp-Pro
> This email is intended to be an help for all of those that (like me) may
> fall in trouble while doing bizarre thing on thunderbird ;)
Something else I discovered last week was an inability to copy all of my
TB folders from my usual machine (OSX 10.4) to a laptop running XP Pro.
The copy would fail on any folders starting with a '*'. I also had a
couple of folders with names like 'CGI, hosting, etc' that stopped the
copying.
Maybe if I'd zipped it all up, moved it across and unpacked it would
have worked?
Neil
C A Upsdell
'*' is a wildcard character. I would recommend against using wildcard
characters in filenames.
Jan Steffen
> WARNING! No folder name starting with "." in Thunderbird for Win Xp-Pro
> This email is intended to be an help for all of those that (like me) may
> fall in trouble while doing bizarre thing on thunderbird ;)
The cause of the problem is, that TB tries to make a file and/or
directory with the name of the folder. So all characters not
suitable for filenames should be avoided in folder names (. / \ * ?)
I think this is severe bug in TB (and Mozilla) because it can lead
to data loss if the user is not able to recover the corrupt files.
It's really a pity that such an old bug still exists (since 1999) in
this otherwise great software.
See bug 124287 for more information "Meta bug: Problems with folders
having names with illegal characters"
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124287
Jan
C A Upsdell
The characters are special characters, not illegal characters. Someone
using an operating system should have some basic understanding of which
characters are special in filenames, and what will happen if these
characters are used. The OP said that it took them several hours to
realize that a leading dot indicated a hidden file: they should have
known this from the start. It is not TB's fault that they did not.
Jan Steffen
> Jan Steffen wrote:
>>
>> See bug 124287 for more information "Meta bug: Problems with folders
>> having names with illegal characters"
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124287
>
> The characters are special characters, not illegal characters. Someone
> using an operating system should have some basic understanding of which
> characters are special in filenames, and what will happen if these
> characters are used. The OP said that it took them several hours to
> realize that a leading dot indicated a hidden file: they should have
> known this from the start. It is not TB's fault that they did not.
>
I agree, that the user should know about file naming conventions.
But the user does not have to have detailed insight about the mail
storage system of his program. So it might not be clear to the average
user that the naming of a mail folder in TB results in a file of the
same name.
So I think there should be at least a warning message. Or better an
appropriate encoding of the "special" characters.
Jan
--
I'm considering whether I should stop taking my anti-paranoia pills
because I think someone has been messing with them.
Moz Champion (Dan)
> C A Upsdell > wrote:
>> Jan Steffen wrote:
>>> See bug 124287 for more information "Meta bug: Problems with folders
>>> having names with illegal characters"
>>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124287
>> The characters are special characters, not illegal characters. Someone
>> using an operating system should have some basic understanding of which
>> characters are special in filenames, and what will happen if these
>> characters are used. The OP said that it took them several hours to
>> realize that a leading dot indicated a hidden file: they should have
>> known this from the start. It is not TB's fault that they did not.
>>
>
> I agree, that the user should know about file naming conventions.
> But the user does not have to have detailed insight about the mail
> storage system of his program. So it might not be clear to the average
> user that the naming of a mail folder in TB results in a file of the
> same name.
> So I think there should be at least a warning message. Or better an
> appropriate encoding of the "special" characters.
>
> Jan
The characters are 'special' by reason of the OS, not reason of the
program. It is not the programs 'job' to give you a warning regarding
restrictions the OS has put up. The program doesnt restrict you in
choice of characters to use in file names, the OS does.
Many OSes 'restrict' or 'define' characters as special in different ways.
For example, on windows the * character is 'reserved' for a wildcard
character, while on a mac it can be used freely (if in a file name) and
can be used to change the loading order/alphabetical listing of a file.
TB is written as a cross platform program, and while there are
differences between the various versions per platform, building in a
component to check which system is in use, and what special characters
are reserved (which can vary between differing versions of the same OS
as well) would be time consuming and space consuming for something that
is simply NOT the job of the program.
Your car is designed to drive on the road, but it doesnt know the rules
of the road, it expects you to know them. Asking TB to put up a warning
when you use a restricted or special character as defined by the OS, is
like expecting your Chevy (or Ford) to belt you upside the head the next
time you go thru a stop sign without coming to a full stop. It might be
useful, but I dont think its going to happen.
Terry
keyboard
BUT
If an OS does not allow special characters, the program should not
violate the reservation. Just because within TB you can name a folder
*stuff*, doesn't mean that TB should try to write a file called *stuff*.
What is within a programs parameters should follow the OS specifications.
I use Paperport, a program for scanning and writing PDF files. Within a
Paperport "window", I can name a file or folder similar to TB. But as
soon as I try to use a reserved character, a dialog pops up that states,
"An item name cannot contain any of the following characters: \/:*?"<>|".
That is the correct way a program should react. Allowing a file to be
named something that will cause loss of data is a MAJOR bug, regardless
if it is cross-platform or not. While it may only happen on Windows,
the vast majority of the user base uses Windows also, so TB should work
properly FIRST on that platform, not use the mindset that "it's okay on
Unix & Mac OS". My bet is that 8 out of 10 TB users are on Windows
(probably closer to 9), so I think TB SHOULD base its standard on that
user base before Unix or Mac by not allowing those characters to be used
within a folder name UNLESS TB can create an alias/shortcut to the
actual file that uses the correct characters within the OS specs.
--
Terry
Terry
Okay the asterisks around the word stuff in my first paragraph only
bolded the word. It should be (hopefully it will display correctly):
If an OS does not allow special characters, the program should not
violate the reservation. Just because within TB you can name a folder
**stuff**, doesn't mean that TB should try to write a file called
**stuff**. What is within a programs parameters should follow the OS
specifications.
--
Terry
Moz Champion (Dan)
On which system? You claim 8 out of 10 (or possibly more) users use
Windows, but WHICH Windows? 95, 98, 98SE, ME, XP - all of them use
different characters that are 'reserved' or 'special'. Not even all
Windows systems agree on whats what.
Since the Windows version can run on Windows 98, which without a mod
cant handle file names longer than 8 characters, should you be
restricted to 8 characters just in case?
Since Windows 2000 allows the use of * and ? as wildcards in searches,
should they be restricted from use in file names?
This is a list of the characters explicitly forbidden in file names in
Windows 98
http://www.file-ext.com/character.html
<>:"/\| and ?
note how the * is notably absent from the list, yet appears in your list
from Paperport (most likely Windows 2000 or better version)
NB the use of & and ^ (ampersand & caret) were not officially sanctioned
for use in filenames in Windows 98
Thunderbird 1.5 can run on Windows 98, so should * be restricted or not?
Should Windows XP users be restricted to file names of 8 characters or
less, after all Windows 98 (no mod) cant handle them.
Why should a user running an earlier version of Windows than 2000 be
penalized for using the * character when it is NOT reserved by the system?
Paperport 10 costs $99 online ($69 upgrade) - you may be able to find it
for less at discount sites. Thunderbird costs zero.
If Paperport sold a million copies they would have income of at least 25
million dollars - enough to pay for programmers to add such niceties to
a program several times over. If Thunderbird 'sold' 100 million copies,
their income would still be zero
You may have received your copy of Paperport in a 'bundle' from the
computer manufacturer - Paperport (Nuance) still got at least $5 or $10
from it. Even at that rate, Nuance received more than 5 or 10 million
dollars from their million copies. That sort of income can pay for
programming to include such 'niceties' as restricted characters.
Paperport also requires 150 MB of disk space, compared to Thunderbird's
52 MB
Besides, why doesnt the Windows system itself pop up and remind you you
cant use those characters? Its windows that makes the restriction, why
doesnt it do the job? Microsoft certainly has the money to do so and the
programming expertise to make it happen.
Firefox is cross platform compatible, and is better because of it. Many
of the programmers for Thunderbird (and other Mozilla products) dont
program on Windows, they use Unix or Macs. Firefox also is 'open
source', which makes affordable, standards compliant software that is
NOT catering to the whims of the monopoly. Simply because Windows has
the lions share of the market doesnt means its better. Microsoft was
even sued in the United States AND Europe for abusing it's near
monopoly, and here you are saying others should join in as well?
Microsoft has let security lapses in its software lapse unfixed for as
long as 5 years in some cases, Mozilla fixes the ones in its products in
32 days or less.
And once again, Thunderbird is an email client that runs on the Windows
system. The 'rules of the road' are laid down by the system, so why
doesnt the system pop up and explain you cant do that? Windows certainly
has enough other popups and alerts that warn the user, why doesnt it here?
Neil Hughes
Which I should have realized of course :-( That's what you get for using
Mac-only mail apps for years. Mind you, I've used DOS and Windows for
years as well, so I should know better...
Neil
Terry
keyboard
You've got some things wrong here.
1. I am not aware of "different" reserved characters betweens Windows
versions. I have Win98, Me, W2K & XP on my system and they all reject
the same characters for filenames, as reserved by the system (actually
going back to DOS).
2. "...Windows 98, which without a mod cant handle file names longer
than 8 characters" Windows 98 supported long filenames, as did Win95.
3. All versions of Windows use * & ? as wildcards, not just W2K.
4. Win98 does not support * in filenames even if it is missing from the
list you provided.
5. "Why should a user running an earlier version of Windows than 2000 be
penalized for using the * character when it is NOT reserved by the
system?" Asterisk is reserved by any Windows version as well as DOS.
6. Your comparison between Paperport and TB is irrelevant, especially
when talking about a free program compared to a paid program. Having a
dialog warning popup isn't considered 'niceties', it's telling you the
file system doesn't support the characters you're attempting to use! If
TB allows the use of special characters in filenames AND WRITES those
special characters SOMEHOW to the file system, THAT is a bug.
7. All versions of Windows DO tell you about reserved characters. Open
Explorer and try to rename a folder or file using a special character.
ANY program should relay that information to the user when running the
programs shell. TB does not (from the OP's experience. I have never
tried using a special character in TB but I will after writing this).
--
Terry
Terry
They ARE illegal in filenames BECAUSE they are reserved. They may vary
between OS's but every OS has characters you can't use. Try creating a
folder in Explorer or at a Command window using one of the reserved
characters. You'll be told you can't use them. If you can't use them,
they're illegal to use in a file name.
The period doesn't indicate a hidden file. It is the meta for selecting
current working directory, as it is in DOS & Windows. So if TB allows a
folder named abc to be renamed .abc (which in Windows is an un-named
file with the abc extension), TB itself no longer recognizes the file it
named because TB doesn't use any extensions for the folders it creates.
That IS TB's fault.
--
Terry
Terry
keyboard
Okay. I ran some tests, and read the bug report listed by Jan. I
probably should have tested before this because I was only going by
other responses in this thread instead of having my own proof.
1. Created folder named in TB: test* account<> . It created successfully.
2. Closed TB
Looked for folder name in Explorer. None found. Looked for file name.
None found. Did find file 0ed3d8d8 and associated MSF file. The file
0ed3d8d8 contained the email I copied to the folder: test* account<> .
So TB reacted properly here I believe by creating an alias file name for
a folder that used reserved characters.
3. Deleted folder in TB. No problems. Files named above were deleted also.
So it appears that there have been bug fixes on the above issue.
1. Using bug report, created folder named: abc . Copied email to it. In
Explorer I found file named abc and associated MSF file.
2. Renamed folder abc to .abc . Closed TB. Files had also been renamed
to .abc .
3. Opened TB. Folder .abc was gone. This is an easy answer. Since I
added the . to the folder name, I essentially renamed the file with an
extension abc with no name. When TB opened, it couldn't read the file
because it was now not a folder name recognized by TB (since TB folders
do not have any extensions and .abc has the extension abc). THIS IS A
BUG and should not be allowed. It is the same with Unix since the . is
also the meta for selecting current working directory (not hidden
character as stated further up). You would have to test this on a Mac to
see if it's the same (which it should be if OS X is Unix based).
--
Terry
C A Upsdell
>>> See bug 124287 for more information "Meta bug: Problems with folders
>>> having names with illegal characters"
>>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124287
>>
>> The characters are special characters, not illegal characters.
>> Someone using an operating system should have some basic understanding
>> of which characters are special in filenames, and what will happen if
>> these characters are used. The OP said that it took them several
>> hours to realize that a leading dot indicated a hidden file: they
>> should have known this from the start. It is not TB's fault that they
>> did not.
>
> They ARE illegal in filenames BECAUSE they are reserved. They may vary
> between OS's but every OS has characters you can't use. Try creating a
> folder in Explorer or at a Command window using one of the reserved
> characters. You'll be told you can't use them. If you can't use them,
> they're illegal to use in a file name.
>
> The period doesn't indicate a hidden file. It is the meta for selecting
> current working directory, as it is in DOS & Windows. So if TB allows a
> folder named abc to be renamed .abc (which in Windows is an un-named
> file with the abc extension), TB itself no longer recognizes the file it
> named because TB doesn't use any extensions for the folders it creates.
> That IS TB's fault.
Sigh. A leading '.' DOES indicate a hidden file in *nix, which is what
the OP said. In *nix, file '.abc' is not an unnamed file with the
extension 'abc': it is a file named '.abc' that is hidden. As for
selecting the current working directory, that is './', not simply '.'.
There are very few characters that are illegal in *nix filenames, at
least in versions which support unicode. One reference I found listed
only two: the '/' character, and the null character. But there are
some characters which it is unwise to use, e.g. '*', because they have
special meanings for certain applications, e.g. the *nix shell, and must
be escaped if they are so used.
The Real Bev
> And once again, Thunderbird is an email client that runs on the Windows
> system. The 'rules of the road' are laid down by the system, so why
> doesnt the system pop up and explain you cant do that? Windows certainly
> has enough other popups and alerts that warn the user, why doesnt it here?
"We don't have to care. We're Microsoft." (Apologies to Lily Tomlin)
--
Cheers, Bev (Happy Linux User #85683, Slackware 10.2)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Linux -- the ultimate freebie!
Fritz Whittington
pencil and scribbled:
file-naming conventions on Windows?
--
Fritz Whittington -- TI Alum -- http://www.tialumni.org
"I bought a tape called 'Subliminal Advertising'. The next day I bought 47 more." --Steve Wright
Fritz Whittington
pencil and scribbled:
also fails to work properly under Unix, which I would consider a bug as
well. Just because I want to not see a file when I do a "normal"
directory listing does not mean that I don't want the appropriate
programs to handle it properly. In fact, under Linux, the user profile
is kept in a directory named ".thunderbird" in the user's home dir, so
obviously TB knows how to find "hidden" files and directories. I
suspect the programmer just didn't think of the possibility that a user
would use such strange names. It's an error for the code not to audit
data input by the user to ensure that it's suitable for further use.
Therefore, if it lets the user name a folder .abc, then it should be
able to find it again. It seems that the Windows version actually does
some of this, as Terry's test showed, when it renamed the folder: test*
account<> to 0ed3d8d8 for its internal use to associate a filename with
a TB folder name. Unfortunately, since the "." is not illegal in a file
name, it just used it literally, and the code which opens and displays
folder names was not prepared to handle such a file name, even though
it's a legal one.
--
Fritz Whittington -- TI Alum -- http://www.tialumni.org
"Man is by nature a political animal." --Aristotle, Politics
C A Upsdell
>> Sigh. A leading '.' DOES indicate a hidden file in *nix, which is
>> what the OP said. In *nix, file '.abc' is not an unnamed file with
>> the extension 'abc': it is a file named '.abc' that is hidden. As
>> for selecting the current working directory, that is './', not simply
>> '.'.
>>
>> There are very few characters that are illegal in *nix filenames, at
>> least in versions which support unicode. One reference I found listed
>> only two: the '/' character, and the null character. But there are
>> some characters which it is unwise to use, e.g. '*', because they have
>> special meanings for certain applications, e.g. the *nix shell, and
>> must be escaped if they are so used.
> BUT, the OP states he was running under Win XP-Pro, NOT Unix.
Sigh. This thread has become tedious to the point that it is useless.
I will end simply by repeating something the OP said, which is this
issue I have been trying to address, obviously with no success:
"a file name starting with '.' in *nix means 'Hidden file or folder'"
Terry
Sigh. Well as far as I'm concerned you can quit sighing, since you
obviously feel you're so far above the rest of us. You're addressing
something that really has nothing to do with the OP's question. Even the
OP's statement regarding Unix was irrelevant to his situation.
His folder disappeared because when he renamed the file with a preceding
period, TB no longer saw the folder and associated file as a mail
file/folder. The file became a no-named file with an extension,
something TB does NOT use when it names mail folders. THAT is why it did
not show up the next time he launched TB. NOT because the folder was
hidden as the OP thought.
So feel free to take your superior mindset to another "useless" off
topic subject.
--
Terry
MartyH
If mainstream users (people who think computers only work the way they
come out of the box) are expected to switch to TB from what is delivered
with their system, TB needs to protect them from themselves. These
users don't know squat about filename conventions. Those of us who have
even a basic idea of how things come together sometimes need a reminder.
(Some posters in this thread have even been bitten by this! Hence the
"I should know better" comments.)
Since there is a relatively limited set of reserved or special
characters and TB is a multiplatform application, it should either warn
about or prohibit the use of any of these characters.
I also somewhat disagree about cars knowing the rules of the road. Some
cars now turn on headlights when wipers are on and dim high beams when
they sense an oncoming car. Those are rules of the road being followed
by the car, not by the choice of the driver.
This type of thing is one of the things holding back TB and FF from
mainstream users. They don't always work "out of the box" like M$
products do. The advantage of course is security and flexibility for
those of us who like to tweak things. I will never go back to OE or IE,
but neither will I try to have my father, who is in his 70s, or elderly
neighbors and friends even try TB or FF. I don't want the constant
calls to tweak PCs when things don't just work (and my dad is half a
country away).
The general public expects their computers and applications to work just
like their cell phones: perfectly, always, without exception. The only
thing they understand is that it needs a signal and a charged battery.
They don't know anything about towers, systems, how roaming works or
anything else. They just pay the bill when they get it.
Sure, people should know about their OS limitations. But many (most?)
don't. And they care more about having a system that works than one
that is secure. Anything else is too much effort.
Not trying to start a war here! Its just my 2 cents worth on the topic.
--
Marty