Re: [gmane.emacs.bugs] Emacs fails to start properly if the current working directory is on a vfat or ntfs filesystem

[Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>]

Miles Bader wrote:
> Isn't that sort of dangerous?  If Emacs only uses characters which are
> _garanteed_ to work on any no matter how stupid, that would seem to
> dramatically increase the chances of a clash with a real filename...
>   
autosave files and backup files already have that possibility, but noone 
has worried about it in the past.
By avoiding *?<>|" and control characters, we slightly reduce the 
possibilities for file names, but I don't think the chance of a clash 
realistically increases that much, as long as we use some unusual 
characters like # and/or ~ and append the process id or whatever the 
number is we're appending.

Even on filesystems that support them, those characters can be 
problematic for naive users who forget to quote them, so avoiding them 
is a good idea in general.