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> It is probably a bad idea to allow mixed character-set filenames

As someone who would be affected by this directly, I can tell you right away this rule would be a no-go. I plainly need the ability to mix Latin and Cyrillic characters in my filenames. A filesystem or OS that wouldn't let me do so wouldn't even be considered.

A very simple rule of thumb is, if it is a title of a book (or a song, or a film etc), it should also be a valid filename.



Interesting. Are those filenames used in contexts where homographs could be more than a minor annoyance?


BTW, whether a character is or isn't a homograph depends very much on the font. For example, Cyrillic letter 'и' has no obvious visual counterpart in Latin... but as soon as you use cursive, it becomes 'и'. Which is visually indistinguishable from cursive 'u': 'u'.

Same thing with the letter 'т': in cursive, it becomes 'т', which in many (but not all) fonts looks the same as cursive 'm'.


I guess? If a malicious attacker could gain access to my FS and create homographs, figuring out which is which while browsing the filesystem would be non-trivial.

But I find it an unlikely attack vector to begin with. The main concern with homographs is in URLs and other external resources.


I guess I am thinking of contexts like uploaded files, or shared network drives.




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