tmpfiles.d and spaces in filenames

[Ian Malone]

On 1 June 2011 19:27, Corinna Vinschen <vinschen at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Jun  1 09:59, JD wrote:
>> On 06/01/11 09:37, Ian Malone wrote:
>> > On 1 June 2011 16:11, Corinna Vinschen<vinschen at redhat.com>  wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> How can I specify filenames with spaces in tmpfiles.d configuration
>> >> files?  There's no hint in `man tmfiles.d'.  I tried
>> >>
>> >> - fstab style:      d /foo\040bar 0755 root root
>> >> [...]
>> >> So, do I have to take it that tmpfiles.d doesn't grok spaces in
>> >> filenames at all?
>> >>
>> >> Please note, I'm not asking for the obvious answer "don't do this" and
>> >> I'm also not asking for the counter question "why do you need this?"
>> >>
>> > [...]
>> > So the long answer is you either have to modify tmpfiles.c to deal
>> > with this or write a similar daemon to do it.
>
> I guess this should be converted into a bugzilla entry then.
>

> That's not always possible and you can't ask all users to rename their
> files.  Filenames like "Expenses May 2011.odt" are just to be expected.
> Another example is the default naming of CF or SD media formatted on
> certain camera models.  Yet another exmaple are customer request.
>

So far as I understand from the manpage, tmpfiles.d is not so much for
cleaning the tmp directory on a regular basis as for creating and
managing temporary files and directories on volatile filesystems. I'm
not sure there's really a compelling argument for having this as a
request for feature, except if you must have spaces in the temporary
directory name for some reason. Being able to use anything you can put
in fstab (consistency argument) is probably the only one that flies.
If you have customers that run unix, care exactly what temporary
system locations you use and insist there are spaces in the names then
you have very weird customers.

-- 
imalone