On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 01:32:39PM -0400, RiverWind wrote:
> When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
> file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,
> should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
> utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows
> for blank spaces within file names, whereas Dos, Linux and Unix do
> not. This would seem to be the case from my personal point of view
> based upon recent experience.

Use quotes.

touch "This is a file with spaces"
rm "This is a file with spaces"

-dsr-


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On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 01:32:39PM -0400, RiverWind wrote:
> When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
> file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,
> should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
> utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows
> for blank spaces within file names, whereas Dos, Linux and Unix do
> not. This would seem to be the case from my personal point of view
> based upon recent experience.

Why not?

$ touch "file with spaces.txt"
$ ls
file with spaces.txt

> I am attempting to extract a large number of rar files using
> "unrar-free" with no success. I understand that it might be
> necessary to rename each and every file and put some sort of filler
> in each blank space, such as a question mark or some other type of
> punctuation. I am not sure if this is the case or not.

What command are you executing? You're probably just missing the necessary
syntax to handle the spaces correctly, such as escaping or quoting.

> Ultimately this whole matter is nothing more than a product of the
> ever-present conflict/ difference between MS_Windows and other
> systems that lead to all manner of compatibility issues. Linux, DOS
> and Unix users are for ever trying to find work-around solutions to
> these compatibility problems. So, how would you Linux users go
> about processing "rar" files that were produced in Windows using
> Linux software? Would you try to do some sort of "unrar" or would
> you try to convert them over to some version of zip format? If so,
> would you try some variant of gzip?


Generally, you won't find .rar archives on *n*x machines, but rather,
you're more likely to find .tar.gz, .tar.xz, .cpio, etc. But, should you
need to work with RAR archives, the tools are available.

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On Tue, 04 Oct 2011, RiverWind wrote:
> When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
> file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,

This is incorrect.

> should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
> utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows

Spaces need to be escaped on the command line shell, but that's it.
They're allowed anywhere. In fact, if anything, Linux allows too much.

> I am attempting to extract a large number of rar files using
> "unrar-free" with no success. I understand that it might be

unrar-free is useless. You will have to use the non-free one, or something
else that can deal with modern RAR archives.

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them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh


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On Tue, 2011-10-04 at 13:34 -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 01:32:39PM -0400, RiverWind wrote:
> > When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
> > file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,
> > should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
> > utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows
> > for blank spaces within file names, whereas Dos, Linux and Unix do
> > not. This would seem to be the case from my personal point of view
> > based upon recent experience.
>
> Use quotes.
>
> touch "This is a file with spaces"
> rm "This is a file with spaces"
>
> -dsr-

spinymouse@debian:~$ touch "This is a file with spaces"
spinymouse@debian:~$ ls This*
This is a file with spaces

spinymouse@debian:~$ rm This is a file with spaces
spinymouse@debian:~$ ls This*
ls: cannot access This*: No such file or directory



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On Tue, 2011-10-04 at 22:48 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-10-04 at 13:34 -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 01:32:39PM -0400, RiverWind wrote:
> > > When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
> > > file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,
> > > should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
> > > utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows
> > > for blank spaces within file names, whereas Dos, Linux and Unix do
> > > not. This would seem to be the case from my personal point of view
> > > based upon recent experience.
> >
> > Use quotes.
> >
> > touch "This is a file with spaces"
> > rm "This is a file with spaces"
> >
> > -dsr-
>
> spinymouse@debian:~$ touch "This is a file with spaces"
> spinymouse@debian:~$ ls This*
> This is a file with spaces
>
> spinymouse@debian:~$ rm This is a file with spaces
> spinymouse@debian:~$ ls This*
> ls: cannot access This*: No such file or directory


PS: Use " or , don't use ? or *, since wildcards might e.g. rm other
files too.



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Dan Ritter <dsr@tao.merseine.nu> wrote:
>On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 01:32:39PM -0400, RiverWind wrote:
>> When attempting to extract "rar" files in either Linux or Unix, the
>> file naming protocol seems to be a very crucial issue. To wit,
>> should a file be fraught with open spaces, many Unix and Linux
>> utilities will not work, because it seems that MS-Windows allows
>> for blank spaces within file names, whereas Dos, Linux and Unix do
>> not. This would seem to be the case from my personal point of view
>> based upon recent experience.
>
>Use quotes.

Then go and read a good book on basic shell usage, e.g.,
http://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
which I have reviewed and would recommend to those new to Linux/Unix.



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