Special characters in file names?

  • Thread starter Thread starter boe
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boe

Hello,

I was trasnferring files from a MAC server this weekend and had to correct
tons of file names including ones that appeared as though they had boxes in
the file names, ones ending with spaces, ones with special symbols. I
renamed them all because the copy process would fail on them. Is there a
way to allow for any of these in case I don't have time in the future to
modify them on the mac server?

Thanks
 
boe said:
Hello,

I was trasnferring files from a MAC server this weekend and had to correct
tons of file names including ones that appeared as though they had boxes in
the file names, ones ending with spaces, ones with special symbols. I
renamed them all because the copy process would fail on them. Is there a
way to allow for any of these in case I don't have time in the future to
modify them on the mac server?
Click to expand...

Nothing will make any file system that doesn't like certain characters
accept files with those characters.

Best practices on any platform would include:

1. Use only upper/lower case letters, numbers, hyphens " - " and a
single period before a file name extension. Basically use only

A-Z, a-z, 0-9, " - " and " . " only before a file extension.

2. Use file name extensions such as .doc, .xls, .eps, etc.

3. Share items from Windows machines from NTFS partitions.

4. Share items from Mac machines from HFS+ partitions.

You'll notice I don't include _ / \ : space . This may seem excessive
but these characters can cause problems on various systems. I include
the underscore " _ " because some HTML and DNS systems can't handle it.

Since most of the characters you're having problems with are probably
from the Mac side, you can download a file renaming application from
http://www.versiontracker.com to quickly change problem characters to
something else.

Hope this helps! bill
 
Thanks

I notice some machine keeps making files when it goes to a folder - I can't
remember the file name but lets just say it is record with box with an x in
the middle. Any guess on what is causing that?
 
boe said:
Thanks

I notice some machine keeps making files when it goes to a folder - I can't
remember the file name but lets just say it is record with box with an x in
the middle. Any guess on what is causing that?
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the file names from both Mac and Windows? I suspect
one of them will be more readable and possibly give you an idea.

bill
 
It has to be a mac - a PC couldn't leave a file with a character like that.
I just don't know why the MAC is leaving the residue behind.
 
boe said:
It has to be a mac - a PC couldn't leave a file with a character like that.
I just don't know why the MAC is leaving the residue behind.
Click to expand...

You're seeing a difference between platforms. Nothing's wrong.

bill
 
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