Re: Interrupted discussion of BIRD 46

D. C. Sessions wrote:
>
> Matthew Flora wrote:
> >
> > All,
> >
> > This morning's IBIS Open Forum meeting was cut off in mid-discussion of
> > BIRD 46. In that discussion, it was pointed out that file names longer than
> > eight characters may get truncated (at least visually) under Windows NT 3.5.
> >
> > Now in proposing this BIRD, it is was our intent to lift restrictions that are
> > no longer needed. If NT 3.5 is still a common engineering platform and it or
> > any other common engineering platform cannot trivially support file names
> > longer than eight characters, then by all means, let us keep the restrictions.
> >
> > However, bear in mind that this BIRD will not take effect until after IBIS 3.1
> > is ratified. At that future date, will NT 3.5 still be a common engineering
> > platform?
>
> The NT file system inherently uses long file names. Of course, if
> the system is sharing a FAT volume it'll be limited to 8.3,
> but what most NT users see is strictly a shell effect in directory
> listings; programs have full access to the long filenames.
>
> Note that the 8.3 limitation when accessing FAT volumes applies to
> 4.x as well, since NT doesn't use the Win95 hidden filename extensions.
>
> Bottom line: NT3.5 doesn't need special consideration here; it handles
> long names quite nicely. (Says, DCS, who used to administer NT3.5
> systems.)
>
> --
> D. C. Sessions
> dc.sessions@tempe.vlsi.com

I'm not sure that this is completely true. Is there still a problem with
files with capitol letters in the file name? I know that there is a
problem for WIN95 file systems. I think there is still a inherent
inconsistency between how NTFS and Unix files systems view file names
that have "white space" or capital letters or perhaps even other special
characters (like "*" or "\").

jon

 
Received on Fri Jan 9 14:50:20 1998