[tex-k] About spaces in file names

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes]

>>>>> "Karl" == Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> writes:

Karl> I can't think of one off the top of my head, but maybe Olaf,
Karl> Thomas, or someone else knows more. I'll look at your test file
Karl> as soon as I have a chance.

Thanks.

Karl> Have you reported the problems with the various dvi drivers to
Karl> their maintainers? It would be good to do so, if not. Since the
Karl> quoting stuff in Web2C is so new, it's not surprising that there
Karl> are cases which some of the drivers and/or engines aren't happy
Karl> with.

No, we are just beginning our investigation... But seeing how there
are extra quotes in the specials in the dvi, one could think that the
problem is more in TeX itself (or the graphics.sty driver?). After
all, these dvi tools have no problem with spaces in names.

Of course, it may be that there is no way at TeX level to remove the
extra quotes.

JMarc>     On a related note, is there documentation on the status of
JMarc> 8bit characters in file names?

Karl> I'm not sure. I don't think I've written any, anyway :). If the
Karl> 8-bit characters are given the right catcode, it seems like no
Karl> special treatment should be needed? Is there a problem?

With the teTeX 2.0.2 we have here, there is no problem. However, with
a file named é.tex, on an older web2c-based version I get:

---------------------
login-alpha: latex *tex
This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (Web2c 7.0)
MLTeX v2.2 enabled
(^^e9.tex
LaTeX2e <1997/06/01>
(/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/latex2e/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 1997/06/16 v1.3v Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/local/lib/tex/inputs/latex2e/base/size10.clo)) (^^e9.aux) [1] (^^e9.aux) 
)
Output written on ^^e9.dvi (1 page, 220 bytes).
Transcript written on ^^e9.log.
-----------------------

Of course, LyX is not prepared to search for a file named ^^e9.dvi,
and so it fails. I guess my question was to know when this situation
changed, and thus how we can test for it (currently we disallow such
8bit characters, but this is a bit artificial).

Could it be because this older tex is really a MlTeX?

I have to admit this is a little beyond my knowledge of TeX ;)

Karl> Thanks for writing,

Thanks for answering!

JMarc