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From: "Joe Smith" <unknown_kev_cat AT hotmail DOT com>
Subject:  Re: ":" in filename
Date:  Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:33:59 -0500
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"Brian Dessent" <brian AT dessent DOT net> wrote in message 
news:4424BE59 DOT 9184F1E1 AT dessent DOT net...
> Hiroki Sakagami wrote:
>
>> What happens in the below commands?  The ":" in filenames seems to be
>> a problem.  But I don't understand the rule.
>
> The colon is used by NTFS to signify alternate data streams.  You can
> google for more information about this, e.g.
> <http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-multiple.htm>.

Actually it is a limitation of Windows. NTFS supports a "POSIX" filename 
namespace which supports up to 255 unicode (probably utf-16) characters, 
excluding only NUL (0x0000) and Forward Slash '/'. Window's main subsystem 
does not support the POSIX NTFS file namespace, but I suspect the Windows 
POSIX subsystem (a.k.a. INTERIX) does support the POSIX NTFS file namespace.

Windows's Subsystem system is very interesting, but like many other 
interesting features of Windows NT, it came from overengineering, and is 
amost never used.
(One can render windows virtually worthless by disabling the "Windows" 
subsystem!)

Interestingly NTFS alows some other strange configurations, including files 
that take up zero disk space because the data section is actually included 
in the MFT, and directories with a default datasteam (Thus it would be both 
a file and a directory. No clue how Windows would react to that!)





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