FYI: Invalid File Characters
We have a client who has recently though they had “lost” some files from a Server’s network drive and was wondering why and where they could have gone!! It turned out to be that the files were not actually lost, just that several of the employee’s were using “invalid character’s” in the file names so the files were thankfully hidden, but not lost!
Which characters are they you may ask? Well, first a little background. ALL modern computer operating systems are derived from the multi-user computer language Unix from the 1960’s. Microsoft was one of the first to create the single user, Disk Operating System (DOS) as an export of the multi-user Unix. Apple has also adopted Unix as it’s base for Mac OS 10.x as well the varied versions of Unix, Linux, Red Hat OS and so forth.
Since pretty much ALL modern computer operating systems are based on Unix they inherit many of the limitations of Unix! One of those limitations is that certain characters should NOT be used in either folder nor file names at ANY time! These “invalid characters” can, and probably will, cause all sorts of strange behavior!
The character's that should NOT be used in any folder or file name are as follows:
• Tilde (~)
• Number sign (#)
• Percent (%)
• Ampersand (&)
• Asterisk (*)
• Braces ({ })
• Backslash (\)
• Forward Slash (/)
• Colon (:)
• Angle brackets (< >)
• Question mark (?)
• Plus sign (+)
• Pipe (|)
• Quotation mark (“)
• Exclamation Point (!)
• Period (.)
You should not start, nor end, any file with a period. If you were to try to begin a file name with a period on a Mac, the file will disappear! An underscore on a Windows system at the beginning of the file name will hide the file as well! Also, you cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name. Slashes are also extremely problematic as any attempt to use one of these in a file name will cause the Operating System to try to store it in a lower folder, even IF the folder does not exist!
Basically with the exception of the hyphen (-), MOST punctuation and special characters, if used in a folder and / or file name can cause problems. Please avoid them at all costs!
Source: http://bit.ly/2xe4A3a