I am aware that for filenames, somewhere between the UI components and the kernel a conversion between / and : happens. Can someone explain where this happens?
It is easy enough for me to convert ':' in kernel filenames to '/' in the string shown to or accepted from the user. But maybe there is an OS function I should be using to do that, in some more portable way, or something.
More challenging is what to do when the user really wants a ':' in their filename. What is best practice? I was a bit surprised to find that in Finder, if I try to create a file called 'abc/def:ghi', I get a vague error message that tells me to "try with no punctuation marks".
The case that has caused me to look into this now is a desire for filenames that are dates or times. From the user's point of view, a filename '8/10/2026 14:17:42' is not an unreasonable thing to ask for, is it?
What other oddities are there? '.' and '..' of course... anything else?
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