[XeTeX] File name problem

Stephen Moye stephenmoye at mac.com
Mon Jul 4 12:15:44 CEST 2005


On Jul 4, 2005, at 5:17 AM, Jonathan Kew wrote:

>
> On 4 Jul 2005, at 12:27 am, Herbert Schulz wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On Jul 3, 2005, at 6:09 PM, Stephen Moye wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> ...
>>> Does XeTeX not like spaces in a file name?
>>>
>>> Puzzled. Thanks in advance for any insights.
>>>
>>> Stephen Moye
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Howdy,
>>
>> You've hit the nail on the head. Traditional command line programs  
>> (and TeX, etc., falls into that category) worked on OS's that  
>> didn't allow spaces in file names and it is a hangover from those  
>> days.
>>
>
> XeTeX itself can actually handle filenames with spaces--you can put  
> quote marks around them, as in
>
>     \input "my long file name with spaces"
>
> However, Stephen's example shows that it doesn't correctly quote  
> the filename when passing it on to the xdv2pdf process, so if the  
> actual jobname has spaces (as opposed to some other file that's  
> \input during the job) then you'll have trouble.
>
> This counts as a bug, and I should fix it; however, as a general  
> rule in the TeX world, it's safest to avoid spaces and other  
> "peculiar" characters in filenames, as other tools may also have  
> problems with them.

Stupid mistake on my part -- I spend a good deal of time telling  
users **never** to put spaces in file names.

Thanks to everyone for spending time on this.

SGM



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