[tex-live] Re: [tex-k] TeX finding filenames with spaces

[Karl Berry]

    > Can we afford for it to be always on (triptest/spirit-of-license-wise)?

Filenames have always been system-dependent.  We can certainly allow
\input "foo bar.tex"
in base TeX without violating anyone's license, spirit or letter.

We are not obliged to support all Unix shell conventions (which vary
among shells anyway).  We get to decide what is reasonable and so it.
\input "foo bar.tex" seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I don't think it's necessary to go to the trouble of supporting both "
and spaces simultaneously in filenames.  Although I certainly agree in
theory that "all characters should be supported", it seems like way more
work than it's worth.  Whereas putting the "..." patch into the main
source is both simple and useful.

    to devise a TeXish way of supporting them, perhaps {foo bar.tex} ?

That we cannot do in core TeX, it changes the meaning of the \input
primitive.