Hyphens versus underscores

[Joel Hammer]

The place I see this problem in in Wordperfect 5.0
(unix). We log onto to a unix box from our PC's to use a
computer program to  prepare pathology reports.  On our
installation, hitting the dash key inserts a hypen when
working in Wordperfect. A hypen is white space. So, when
our reports get transmitted to other systems outside of
our unix box, white space is removed. So, a grade I-II
tumor comes out as a grade III tumor. Not good.

When we paste text from our PC's into the Unix
wordprocessor (Wordperfect 5.0), running remotely, all
dashes are converted to hypen's, too. This is a big nuisance.

So, I have gotten leary of using -'s, since they mean
different things to different programs.

Joel





On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 02:19:17PM -0500, Rick wrote:



> On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Joel Hammer <joel at hammershome.com> wrote:
> 
> > There are some situations where hyphens are forbiden or
> > ambiguous characters.
> >
> > For example, you may think you have hit the hyphen button,
> > but is that a dash or a hypen? They are different. How
> > can you be sure how all operating systems will handle
> > this ambiguity?
> >
> > Or, as you are processing files, say loading a bunch of
> > file names  into a wordprocessor, will the word processor
> > think that symbol is a dash or a hypen.
> >
> > Underscores are safer.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> I tend to use underscores, unless I include a date, such as:
> This_file_asof_2008-12-25
> 
> Joel, can you elaborate on the hyphen vs/ dash being different?
> 
> In the printing world, you may have hyphens, en-dash, em-dash, etc which are
> all different. But, AFAIK, computer keyboards can only provide a single
> value for a dash/hyphen. Am I mistaken?
> 
> ~Rick
> 
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 11:58:38AM +0200, Angel Tsankov wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Does anyone known good reasons to prefer hyphens to underscores or vice
> > > versa in file names?
> > >
> > > Angel Tsankov
> > >
> > >
> > >
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