Mail Archives: opendos/1997/02/05/14:13:48
On Sun, 2 Feb 1997 dg AT dcs DOT st-and DOT ac DOT uk wrote:
> EDIT "This is a long filename"
>
> ...?
>
> According to Ralf Brown's interrupt list, there are three interrupts. The
> multifunction one I mentioned earlier, a long-filename FindFile, and a
> long-filename FindNext. It would be relatively easy to modify the standard C
> libraries to use these if possible and if not fall back on the old-style 8.3
> ones. Then a simple recompile would convert a program. The difficulty is in
> fixing those programs that assume that a filename is a maximum of 11 bytes,
> and that would have to be done one at a time.
Converting programs that are unaware of the new long filenames
*could* be very difficult. Not only the filename is long, but
the maximum pathname is also very long now. Filename linked
lists would be no big deal, a redefine of MAX_PATH and its
friends would fix that, but any explicit declarations of filename
buffers would have to be recoded. Programs that read in
directory trees and displayed the filenames would have to be
rethought (ie norton commander). Granted, it can be done, and
will (midnight commander), but it could be a nightmare for some
programs! I've got a couple which I've written that I know will
be insane to add LFN support to! I'm porting them to Linux right
now, and then when DOS does ext2, I'm going to port them back.
Sounds like it will be a lot of fun!
Mike A. Harris | http://blackwidow.saultc.on.ca/~mharris
Computer Consultant | My webpage has moved and my address has changed.
My dynamic address: http://blackwidow.saultc.on.ca/~mharris/ip-address.html
mailto:mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca
DOS must have's: 4DOS 5.50c ftp://ftp.std.com/vendors/jpsoft
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