Gentoo NetworkManager Plug-in now supports non-alnum SSID

For a long time, we can’t use non-alnum SSID for system connections when ifnet is enabled. For example, when you have an SSID named “foo bar”, ifnet plug-in will write this into /etc/conf.d/net:
config_foo bar=(…)
And this will break baselayout or openrc because space is not allowed in variable name.

But now you can specify any SSID you want, the plug-in will handle it transparently. Here’s how it works:
When an non-alnum SSID is specified, ifnet plug-in will transform it to the equivalent hex format. For example, you have the SSID “foo bar”, the following will be written to /etc/conf.dnet:
config_0x666F6F20626172=( “dhcp” )
enable_ipv6_0x666F6F20626172=”false”
auto_0x666F6F20626172=”false”
Meanwhile, the name displayed in nm-applet will be transformed to printable characters.

Thanks to  William L. Thomson Jr’s help in Bug #356337.

PS: What is non-alnum? man isalnum