Problems handing directory names beginning with a space

[ddyer-bennet]

I get this error (dozens of them on different directories):

22:17:24 Error Cannot create directory "E:\fanpa\bdr\DaveRommPhotos\archive\Photos and Videos\Caviar Green -- split off iTunes\Fire Sound (consolidate)\Pictures\Scanner Disk\PhotoEnhancer Special Fun 2.2\Styles\Spanish\ Calendars".
Folder name " Calendars" starts/ends with space character.

I'm backing up a large disk volume I inherited from a friend who died, as part of the process of finding and archiving his digital photos. No, I don't think this is a good way to name directories! But, I've got this couple of terrabytes I'm responsible for protecting as I dig through it and find the good parts.

The windows system I'm working on (and running FreeFileSync on; it's a Windows 10 home system up-to-date with Microsoft's updates) handles these directory names just fine, as does the FreeNAS box actually hosting the master copy of the data. It's just FFS that is objecting.

I've got many workarounds and alternatives available, this isn't really putting the photos at risk, just making me do a little extra work to protect them. But -- if it's really FFS imposing this rule on its own, that's not ideal and should in the longer run be fixed I think.

[TAC109]

If you don’t want to wait for this to be fixed in the next release, I believe that version 10.24 will handle directory names staring with a space. This free version is available from the archives section on the web site.

[Zenju]

FreeFileSync 11.0 [2020-07-21]
------------------------------
Allow creating folder name with leading/trailing spaces

[Hermann-]

Hi
Problem with trailing spaces seems to be there in FFS 11.14, Linux Mint 20.04. Only after removing it, I was able to sync that folder.

FreeFileSync 11.0 [2020-07-21]
------------------------------
Allow creating folder name with leading/trailing spaces

[therube]

Didn't see any issue on my end.
Copied directory tree (C:\TMP\BRU) from Win7 to an XP system.

C:\dir > "\\?\C:\TMP\BRU\test.file.with.trailing.space "


(And yes, the file name does end with a trailing space.)

[xCSxXenon]

Windows doesn't allow you to end folder names with spaces anyway. You would have to test with Linux, not Windows.

[therube]

Windows doesn't allow you to end folder names with spaces anyway.

Well, you can. You can have both beginning & trailing spaces. And other oddities.
Now Windows itself & most utilities may not handle that sort of thing very well, but you can.
(Likewise, what I can do on Windows with beginning & ending spaces, I don't know if the same is applicable to the Linux end?)

A long read, but, Windows Illegal Character Help.

[Hermann-]

, I don't know if the same is applicable to the Linux end?)

same on Linux. leading and trailing space is possible in folder names.
Also upper and lower case folder name with the same name. FFS also doesn't like that (same name, but different upper/lower case, in the same folder)