Windows/Cygwin directory name stuff

[Earnie Boyd]

--- Paul Bailey <pmbailey@senet.com.au> wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> On my Win98 machine, I have a sub-dir called "Installer Programs".  (I also
> have other directory names, and file names, with spaces in them.)
> 
> I installed Cygwin, which went OK.  I was copying and moving files, and
> cd'ing throughout the filesystem.  No problems.  That is, until this:
> 
> cd Installer Programs
> 
> It wouldn't let me.  I tried
> 
> cd InstallerPrograms
> cd Installer_Programs
> cd Installer-Programs
> 

cd Installer\ Programs
cd 'Installer Programs'

both of these should work.

> Nothing doing.  Eventually I got there through:
> 
> cd Installer*
> 
> Fortunately I only have the one directory starting with the word
> "Installer".
> 
> I searched throught the Web for some kind of information on spaces in Unix
> filenames.  What little turned up was succinct one-liners, to the tune of
> "Don't use white space in filenames."  Good advice for a Unix-only box, but
> I *already* have the directories and files named as they are!
> 

Spaces in filenames is absolutely _not_ a good feature.

> Is there some mechanism to navigate in bash through a filesystem where
> directories have spaces in their names?  (I mean, I know Unix sees separate
> words after a command as an argument list, but that doesn't apply in the
> case of "cd" since I don't think you can cd into two separate directories
> simultaneously, in the same shell, at the same time.)
> 

Also in bash, you can use what is know as "Tab Completion".  E.G.:

cd Inst<tab>

this will complete the file name for you.  This will complete the filename for
you.  It will ring the bell if there is ambiguity.  CAUTION: Don't hit the
<tab>  as the first character of the command.

Regards,

=====
Earnie Boyd < mailto:earnie_boyd@yahoo.com >
Cygwin Newbies, please visit
< http://www.freeyellow.com/members5/gw32/index.html >
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores.  Millions of Products.  All in one place.
Yahoo! Shopping: http://shopping.yahoo.com

--
Want to unsubscribe from this list?
Send a message to cygwin-unsubscribe@sourceware.cygnus.com