Illegal filename characters one Windows

[Clemens Buchacher <drizzd@aon.at>]

Hi,

I recently noticed that git does not deal very well with illegal
filenames on Windows. I have a repository which contains a couple of
filenames like "Re: some email.eml". On a Windows box, those files get
truncated to just "Re" during checkout, because ':' is an illegal
character for filenames on Windows. [1]

I know that the easiest solution would be to simply remove the illegal
characters on my Linux box and be done with it. But I dislike the fact
that git cannot handle such filenames more gracefully.

So I have been wondering how to fix this. I have considered converting
the filename to unicode or URL encoding or even just dropping the
illegal characters on checkout. But no matter which conversion I choose,
it will conflict with the converted filename, which would be a valid
index entry itself.

If a reasonable solution is not possible, maybe we should not try to
checkout such files at all, and mark them with --skip-worktree. That way
one can at least use such repositories, as long as one does not have to
touch any files with illegal characters in their filename. As it is,
most commands are not usable because the work tree is always dirty (the
files with illegal names have been "removed").

Any better ideas?

Clemens

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename