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authorGravatar Benjamin Barenblat <bbaren@mit.edu>2016-11-07 18:21:15 -0500
committerGravatar Benjamin Barenblat <bbaren@mit.edu>2016-11-07 18:21:15 -0500
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+# Scoville: The escaping overlay file system
+
+Scoville is a [FUSE] overlay file system which works around the limited
+character set allowed in FAT file names. FAT does not permit non-printable
+characters in file names, nor does it allow the characters ‘*’, ‘?’, ‘<’, ‘>’,
+‘|’, ‘"’, ‘:’, or ‘\\’. Many applications support applying a file name
+translation map when placing files on FAT-formatted volumes; however, some –
+notably [git-annex](https://git-annex.branchable.com/) – do not. For those
+applications, Scoville may be the only way to work around some very unpleasant
+ad-hoc schemes.
+
+Usage is trivial: Run Scoville on an existing mounted file system. For example,
+if you have a FAT-formatted SD card mounted on /media/sd, you can run `scoville
+/media/sd`. When you’re done, unmount it with `fusermount -u`. While mounted,
+Scoville will translate all forbidden characters to their URL-escaped versions.
+For example, a file called ‘What Else Is There?.flac’ will be stored on disk as
+‘What Else Is There%3f.flac’.
+
+Beyond escaping, Scoville is exactly as capable as the file system it overlays.
+If you want long file names, use vfat; if you want POSIX permissions, use
+umsdos. (On the other hand, if you use umsdos, you don’t need to use Scoville,
+since umsdos provides Scoville’s special character handling, albeit using a
+different scheme.)
+
+[FUSE]: https://github.com/libfuse/libfuse
+
+## License
+
+Scoville is licensed under the [Apache License, version 2.0][Apache-2].
+
+[Apache-2]: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0