**CIGAL Reference Manual, Chapter 1 (Topics): filenames**
===== Filenames -- Using Filenames =====
Whenever you specify a filename you should keep two things in mind.

First, it is always safest to use quotation marks around a filename
in case the name conflicts with some other variable name or internally
defined CIGAL name; quotation marks normally won't be necessary, however,
if you are just referring to a file in the current directory.  

Second, if you enter a pathname that includes any characters besides letters, numbers,
'_', and '.' then you MUST put quotation marks around the filename.  You
should also remember that the '\' character is used as a string special
character by CIGAL, so where it appears it must be entered twice.  This is
especially important when running on DOS, which uses '\' as a directory
delimiter.  For example, to list the file, C:\barb\ndat3, you enter:
            list 'c:\\barb\\ndat3'
This is because CIGAL interprets \b and \n as backspace and newline
characters, but it interprets \\ as the \  DOS character (see [[jvs:cigal:manual:chapter1:strings|STRINGS(1)]]).

**See Also:**\\
[[jvs:cigal|CIGAL Home]], 
[[jvs:cigal:manual|CIGAL Manual]], 
[[jvs:cigal:manual:chapter1|Topics List]], 
[[jvs:cigal:manual:help|Manual Help]]