Should I use dashes or underscores in filenames?

Don’t start or end your filename with a space, period, hyphen, or underline. Keep your filenames to a reasonable length and be sure they are under 31 characters. Most operating systems are case sensitive; always use lowercase. Avoid using spaces and underscores; use a hyphen instead.

Why are there no underscores in file names?

Avoid the Underscores “Although OS X and Mac OS formatted disks support spaces in filenames, certain processing scripts and applications may not recognize these characters, or may treat your files differently than expected. Consider substituting an underline (_) or dash (-) where you would normally use spaces.”

Why do people put _ in file names?

On the web, spaces are typically replaced with “ ” in URLs, and some browsers will ‘throw away’ anything after a space. Use the underscore symbol (_) or dash (-) in between words to represent a space, or use CamelCase and omit spaces from your file names altogether.

What is the difference between underscore and dash?

As explained by Matt Cutts in the Google Webmaster Help YouTube video, dashes in the URLs are used to separate two words whereas underscores combine both words into one. When using an underscore Google will only index your combination of words as one.

Why should you use lowercase font when naming files?

The lowercase letters will all display grouped together after the upper cased ones. This is why it’s suggested that file names be used that are all lowercase. How words are separated will also change the ordering of your files.

What is Dash used for?

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does.

Can you use dots in file names?

In Windows filenames cannot end with a dot. In both, filenames cannot consist only of dots. Dots are also problematic when matching filenames using regular expressions because . is a metacharater while underscores and letters are not.

Is it good to have a dash in your domain name?

The hyphen, commonly known as a dash (though this is typographically not correct), is the only spacing character allowed in a domain name. That makes it the only option for when you want to register a domain name with two words in it and you don’t want to—or can’t—mash them together with no space between them.

Are hyphens in URLs bad?

There’s no negative impact on domain names that use dashes. In fact, search engines are able to understand hyphens and perceive them as spaces (as confirmed by Google’s Matt Cutts in this blog post on the subject of dashes and underscores).

Does capitalization matter in file names?

Capitalize the first letter of each word in a file name. This is called “CamelCase.” It is an efficient way to differentiate words but it can be harder to read. If the file name contains a capitalized acronym, it should appear in capitals and the first letter of the following word should also be capitalized.