From: "dan" <hartcore AT hotmail DOT com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: need help with LFN please...
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 15:43:32 +0200
Organization: Academic Computer Centre Utrecht, (ACCU)
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <6g2p10$17ns$1@news.cc.ruu.nl>
NNTP-Posting-Host: warande3142.warande.ruu.nl
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Precedence: bulk

Hi,

I'd like to get into DJGPP and all it's wonderful stuff, like the GNU ports.
I want to use it under plain DOS (msdos 6.22 / msdos 7.x / open (dr-) dos
7.02),
since I don't (want to) use win95.
So, what's the trick on those Long File Names (LFN)? I noticed that a lot of
files in the DJGPP 2.01 distribution have a LFN, especially the sources that
come
with it, but the precompiled binaries have 'em, too (look at perl54b.zip).

I'd like to get rid of those LFN's completely as far as DJGPP+GNU-apps are
concerned. BTW, is there any reason why DJ and his friends use LFN's in the
distributions other than 'we forgot' or 'we haven't come to that yet'????

Now, after reading Dejanews for a couple of hours I am a bit confused even
more
so. I know I can set 'LFN=y' or 'LFN=n', and when unzipping the distribution
I
should use a LFN-capable unzipper (unzip.exe does that, right?).
So, it seems if I use LFN=n, LFN's just get truncated to 8.3. With LFN=y I
get
ugly *~1.* names (tildes).

So, if I use LFN=n, is the DJGPP so 'smart' as to be able to find everything
(libraries, includes and stuff)? Can I then recompile the whole bunch for
SFN (Short File Names).
Same for LFN=y. Maybe just accept ugly tildes?
This again, poses a defragmentation question. DOS defrag.exe will allegedly
fuck up the LFN's, as will Diskeeper or SpeedDisk under NT (since NT uses
another LFN format, right???).
Is it indeed so that I have to use win95 to ELEGANTLY use LFN and be able
to defrag???

I wonder how you DJGPP programmers have solved this irritating matter.

Dan.