From: Alex Riesen <raa.lkml@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:04:25 GMT
Subject: Re: Files with colons under Cygwin
Message-ID: <81b0412b0810050204y6bd91ddbn250ddf9051738969@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20081004233945.GM21650@dpotapov.dyndns.org>

2008/10/5 Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 04:02:23PM +0200, Giovanni Funchal wrote:
>>
>> Cygwin does not allow files with colons, I think this is Windows stuff
>> one just can't avoid.
>
> At least, you cannot use colon in Win32 API. They say Windows "native"
> API has less restrictions over what symbols are not allowed in file
> names, but I guess it is still not allowed.

The part after colon in the file name specifies the identifier of an
alternative data stream (so there can be multiple data sets under one name).
Just another microsoft stupidity no one uses and knows about.