/dev/disk/by-label should not \xNN escape lables with spaces in them

[jimav]

Binary package hint: util-linux

This is an enhancement request, not a bug report.

The request: Allow special characters in /etc/fstab to be represented using either \xNN or \NNN hex or octal escapes (currently only the octal form is accepted).

This will make /etc/fstab syntax compatible with the way disk labels are displayed by udev in /dev/disk/by-label, which uses hex escapes.

For example, I have an external (ESATA) disk drive with an NTFS partition labeled "Cavalry External Drive". After plugging it in, the label can be seen as follows:

$ ls -l -N /dev/disk/by-label/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-10-27 11:27 Cavalry\x20External\x20Drive -> ../../sdc1

However, if the label is copied as-is to an /etc/fstab entry it won't work. You have to translate to octal, like this:
LABEL=Cavalry\040External\040Drive /mnt auto rw,user,utf8 0 0

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: mount 2.17.2-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.35-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Oct 27 11:16:35 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release Candidate amd64 (20100928)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: util-linux

[jimav (james-avera)]

Alternatively, fix the system (udev?) to not replace spaces with escape sequences, but simply embed the actual space characters in the symlinks under /dev/disk/by-label, just like ordinary files containing spaces.

Currently, the "\xNN" escapes are actual characters in the symbolic link's name. Upon reflection, this seems wrong.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Good point. Reassigning to udev.