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file question

Posted By: Nack Ballard
Date: Thursday, 8 April 2010, at 6:18 a.m.

In Response To: file question (David Rockwell)

David: This is off topic, but how to you distinguish computer files for moves such as:

41S.11e.21 and

41S.11E.21

I have been struggling with this. It isn't difficult to find something that works. But, as a purist, I hate to use workarounds.


Nack: Nothing is perfect, but I can give you some ideas and you can decide which you like (or dislike the least):

(1) Use a different character instead of the lower case letter. Most of the time, a good one is available. This is what I usually do. For example, I would name the file 41S.11S.21 (i.e., the e is replaced by S). For "11S," the 5pt is assumed and the player has split with the other two aces. I prefer this to "11U" (for obscure reasons) but either is reasonable with the making-the-5pt assumption.

An alternative you may prefer is 41S.112.21; with double 1s, one cannot play to the 2pt except with the unthinkably bad 6/3*/2, and one cannot play to the 12pt, so it defaults to the 22pt, with the 5pt assumed.

(2) Repeat the letter, which Stick and I have done on occasion. 41S.11e.21 can be "41S.11ee.21" instead. This is ugly if you care about your third roll position file names neatly aligning in your folder, but it gets the job done.

Note that regardless of whatever I might replace e with in the file name (S, U, 2 or ee), I still use "e" in any data docs or spread sheets. In any case, if it's just you and maybe a couple of other people accessing the files, it's unlikely to cause a problem. You're dealing with a small minority of file exceptions, and in the worst case one can open a file to verify a position.

(3) Currently, I use hyphens (dashes) for Snowie and XG file names, and periods (dots) for Gnu file names. (Somewhat arbitrary, but this system makes it less likely I'll put a file into the wrong folder.) Whichever you're using, change it to the other after a lower case letter. For example, when the E file rears its head, change 41S.11e.21 to 41S.11e-21, or 41S-11e-21 to 41S-11e.21. (This solution or some variant might work well for Chase if he sticks with Alphadual, though it could depend on how he's handling punctuation.)

(4) Create an auxiliary folder for all file names that use a lower case letter when one with the same capital letter also exists. For example, say you have 41S.11e.21 in your "Third roll position" folder. Now you decide to add a 41S.11E.21 file. Put 41S.11e.21 in a folder entitled "Lower case," and then add 41S.11E.21 to your Third roll position folder. (You don't need to do this for lower case files without a doppelganger; they can happily sit in the main folder.) Even as a catch-all, you will probably have very few files in your Lower case folder.

(5) Chase's Latin letters idea. When I first read his post, I salivated at the notion of other possible uses. However, if the Latin e variants look so similar to e, it seems like they may not be so practical for new symbol usage but rather more ideally suited to file-letter replacement (like tricking the computer with an extra smudge accompanying the letter). I don't know how many other letters of the alphabet have convenient subs or if using Latin letters might cause unusual problems; perhaps Chase or someone can elaborate.

Nack

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