What technical reasons exist for not using space characters in file names?

Posted by Chris W. Rea on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Chris W. Rea
Published on 2009-08-25T00:25:13Z Indexed on 2012/10/05 21:41 UTC
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Filed under:

file-management

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operating-systems

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spaces

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filenames

Somebody I know expressed irritation today regarding those of us who tend not to use spaces in our filenames, e.g. NamingThingsLikeThis.txt -- despite most modern operating systems supporting spaces in filenames.

Are there technical reasons that it's still common to see file names without (appropriate) spaces? If so, what are these technical reasons that spaces in filenames are avoided or discouraged, and in what circumstances are they relevant?

The most obvious reason I could think of, and why I typically avoid it, are the extra quotes required on the command line when dealing with such files. Are there any other significant technical reasons?

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