Search code examples
standardsfilenames

Decimal mark in a filename

Is there a canonical way to write decimal marks in a filename? Dots, commas and apostrophe symbols are problematic.

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything similar. Maybe I didn't know how to look for it.

Solution

  • Windows (7; probably relevant to later versions)
    Through experimentation I have discovered that you can name files with "." in them as long as the file extension is after the last ".". For example: ".qerg..docx" is an acceptable file name, while "..rwhg..docx." is not. Here I have a picture of a .txt file I named "...":

    screenshot

    Macintosh OS 9
    Decimals are allowed, however colons (":") are not.
    Macintosh OS X
    Same rule as Mac OS 9, however file or folder names are not allowed to begin with a decimal.
    Unix
    The characters not allowed in Unix file and folder names are slash ("/") and NUL ("\0"), however in most Unix shells these characters (\ ? * | " < >) need to be escaped with a backslash, for example:
    The file name:

    What is > life?

    Would need to be entered into the shell as:

    What\ is\ \>\ life\?

    Further reading:
    There is a helpful Wikipedia article about your question here.