Comparison of forbidden symbols and names in different FS's

Question

What symbols and (maybe) names are forbidden on different files systems available in modern Linux distribution?

Maybe interesting in this context: Understanding Unix file name encoding — Marco, May 02 '13 at 20:42

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 02 '13 at 19:46

2

The limiting factor is more the OS than the FS. For example, the only forbidden character in ext4 is '\0' (NULL), which is also forbidden in unix, but unix and linux have one other forbidden character, '/'.

answered May 02 '13 at 19:46

goldilocks

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 03 '13 at 15:04

On Unix, a file name can contain any character except '\0' (NUL) and '/' (directory separator). All current Linux/Unix native filessytems have to handle this. Foreign filesystems might have their own restrictions (for example, MS-DOS FAT can have only filenames in the 8+3 format, with exactly one '.', probably ':' and '\' are forbidden too; VFAT presumabably forbids ':' and '\' only).

Comparison of forbidden symbols and names in different FS's

2 Answers2