Spaces in file names are looking for troubles

What is the purpose of naming a file script (dev).tmpl? Oh, I see, to prove that Setuptools can support funny file names. Great.

I read bug #134, and especially jaraco’s comment on Jan 3, 2016. There is a third principle, besides least astonishment and robustness, and it is the readability. As an invisible character, a space cannot be distinguished from other invisible characters, such as tab and a plethora of UTF-8 space variations. How easily can you tell script (dev).tmpl from script (dev).tmpl? (Hint: one of them has multiple spaces, but you need to inspect HTML code to tell). An accidental misspell can hardly catch your eyeballs.

Certainly, script-dev.tmpl would have looked too simple, eh? So here’s a fourth principle, KISS.

The URI syntax (rfc3986) provides for a set of unreserved characters (ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~"), whereby the rest, including spaces, has to be percent-encoded. What doddering fools!

Email syntax allows for spaces in the local-part of an email address, provided that spaces are quoted. However, SMTP wording is “a host that expects to receive mail SHOULD avoid [them]”.

Some SQL implementation provide for spaces in variable names. I’d guess you’re looking forward for the next version of Python to support a similar feature too, possibly varying quotation styles from a version to the next. Real progress, eh?

I hope I didn’t annoy you by re-opening a bug that you consider a feature. I guess I won’t be the last one, until you fix it.

Best Ale

[jaraco]

Sorry, but spaces are valid in filenames and systems and tools should support them.

[RuRo]

Have you considered renaming the file to

script\x00 (🥴`'); DROP TABLE packages;--.tmpl‮

? I think, that will significantly increase the “strength” of this file.