X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f
From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: intdos question
Date: 15 Jan 2005 17:29:54 GMT
Lines: 24
Message-ID: <34t28iF4da7cdU5@news.dfncis.de>
References: <oGSFd.353$N25 DOT 335 AT newsfe3-gui DOT ntli DOT net> <41E81320 DOT 609028BD AT yahoo DOT com> <01c4faea$Blat.v2.2.2$57538880 AT zahav DOT net DOT il>
X-Trace: news.dfncis.de oPDyfeOO+wYur9QTH0VzLQeY61fXRBMEo7VVC3664011A/ic/WS0QTzbG3
X-Orig-Path: not-for-mail
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org> wrote:
> > From: CBFalconer <cbfalconer AT yahoo DOT com>
> > Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:57:24 GMT
> > 
> > I think you are barking firmly up the wrong tree.  The point is
> > "why does the drag and drop leave a short file name".  There is no
> > need for your program to incorporate all sorts of non-standard and
> > non-portable code if you can solve that.

> Drag-n-drop produces a short 8+3 file name due to a Windows
> misfeature: it always does that when a file is dropped on a DOS
> program.

I don't agree that this is a misfeature --- it's a necessity.  There's
no way Windows can know if a given DOS program supports long file
names as command line arguments or not, so passing anything but the
8+3 alias would be a terribly bad idea.

The misfeature, if any, is several layers deeper, where the whole
concept of a short name alias lies buried.

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.