[GTALUG] odd evince command behaviour

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jan 07, 2021 at 08:18:34PM -0500, Aruna Hewapathirane via talk wrote:
> Why not simply rename the file to something.pdf ?
> 
> I just tested and the command(s) below works:
> mv 'RE: something.pdf' something.pdf && evince something.pdf && mv
> something.pdf 'RE: something.pdf'
> 
> unless of course there is a real need to have it work using evince "RE:
> someting.pdf"?

: is special in filenames if it is before the first directory separator
for many programs since it might be host:filepath

evince for example allows ftp://host/file so it clearly cares about :
in the filename before any slash.

That's why using ./ in front works.  Otherwise you have to escape the :
with a \ or perhaps even two of them depending who strips it.

-- 
Len Sorensen