> In article <369ceb04.0@news.povray.org> , "Johannes Hubert"
> <jhu### [at] algonetse> wrote:
> 
> >I don't know about this "bug" and it's fix, I am just curious:
> >
> >Regardless of if the OS allows a leading space or not: Why would anyone
> >in his right mind would want to use a leading space in a filename? 
[..]
Thorsten Froehlich <fro### [at] charliecnsiitedu> wrote:

> 
> Just a short technical explaination: Macs don't use pathes to find a
> unique file. And spaces are only the tip of the iceberg...Macs allow
> volumes with the same name...each volume has an unique ID, so it is no
> problems...and some users like spaces etc.  For example spaces in front
> move (if sorted) the filename to the top.
> 
> So the answer should be: As users are allowed to name their files this way
> programmers *have to* support it. Actually, this is no problem for Mac OS
> applications as long as they don't need path based standard C lib file IO.
> And there is no perfect solution for this :-(

As Thorsten said, there are all kinds of reasons for using a leading
space in a file name or volume name. 

We recently got a bug report [about our unofficial version] from a new
(I guess) POV-Ray user.
POV-Ray kept on complaning that the file 'xxx' could not be found. And
looking at this message you keep asking yourself why, why,.. if your eye
doesn't catch it you can look for a long time!
In this case the reason for the space was probably just because 
' Macintosh HD ' looks nicer on the desktop then 'Macintosh HD'.

I think that the space character is one of the most used ones in file
names on a Mac and especially this character is not handled right by
POV-Ray.

Anyway, the official version not only has a problem when the file name
has a leading space but also if the library paths have them. 
Our version only doesn't like a leading space in a volume name, but the
problem remains.

POV-Ray still attracts new users (yeh!) every day and those users should
be able to render the examples, even if there volume(s) have a leading
space.
And if I remember well, there have been some bug reports concerning this
to the Mac-Pov-Team-dudes in the past. So it *did* happen and it *still*
does happen!

Perhaps a warning in the message window is required if a leading space
is detected instead of 'could not find file' on platforms where it
matters.

Yvo Smellenbergh

-- e-mail:sme### [at] skynetbe

http://users.skynet.be/smellenbergh

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