3 ms·
> Why is the dot/period character used as file extension separator? Why not? Maybe it was realized that other candidate non-alphabetic symbols were already res
by lutusp 12y ago
> Why is the dot/period character used as file extension separator?
Why not? Maybe it was realized that other candidate non-alphabetic symbols were already reserved for other things, like '/' as a path delimiter on Unices, '\' same purpose on Windows, '#' as a comment delimiter, '%' as the modulo operator, '|' as the command pipe symbol, '^' to signify either power or exclusive-or depending on context ... we're quickly running out of candidate symbols on an ASCII keyboard.
- mooism2 12y agoWindows/MS-DOS had file extensions (which it inherited from CP/M) before it had directories and directory separators. Did CP/M and Unix independently come up with file extensions with a dot separator, or did they acquire it from the same source? I'm dimly aware of other operating systems that use(d) a different character (AS/400?), but it's outside my ken.
- ja27 12y agoI believe Microsoft's file extensions and the 8.3 naming scheme are descended from Digital's 6.3 naming in VMS, RT-11, etc. DEC even used a number of the same extensions: EXE, COM, OBJ. Not sure where they came from prior to that. I don't think IBM used file extensions like that in System/360, System/32, or anything prior to PC-DOS. From what I can tell, Burroughs and Univac didn't use them either.