[Slackbuilds-users] Metacharacters in package names

[Didier Spaier]

On 08/23/2018 08:33 AM, Chris Abela wrote:
> My intention was to solicit your reconsideration on the inclusion of metacharacters in package names. They are a nuisance, ugly and they break things. Which characters are acceptable? Would you also accept white spaces and semi-colons?

Let's distinguish between '+', spaces and semi-colons

'+' is special only in extended regular expression according to POSIX and can then be escaped, cf. §9.4.3 ERE Special Characters
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap09.html#tag_09_04

The POSIX specification requires that sed supports the basic regular expressions but supporting the EREs is not required, cf. Regular Expressions in sed:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/sed.html#tag_20_116_13_02.

A BRE can always be used instead of an ERE as far as I know.

Anyway, the '+" character is used in names of packages shipped in Slackware:

didier[/var/log/packages]$ ls /var/log/packages|grep '+'
biff+comsat-0.17-x86_64-1
dvd+rw-tools-7.1-x86_64-2
gcc-g++-5.5.0-x86_64-1_slack14.2
gtk+-1.2.10-x86_64-5
gtk+2-2.24.31-x86_64-1_slack14.2
gtk+3-3.18.9-x86_64-1
libcdio-paranoia-10.2+0.93+1-x86_64-1
libsigc++-2.6.2-x86_64-1
didier[/var/log/packages]$

spaces an semi-colons instead shall be quoted if they are to represent themselves, cf. the POSIX specification, Shell Command Language  §2.2 Quoting:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_02

So in this case not using them in package names is wise.

All this being said I am not a SBo admin, and this is just my opinion.

Didier