Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!crdgw1!news
From: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Opening up to 255 files in DOS 3.30
Message-ID: <1016@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 29 Jun 89 10:25:45 GMT
References: <2385@ur-cc.UUCP> <417@nbires.nbi.com>
Reply-To: dixon@sagittarius.crd.ge.com (walt dixon)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 20

last time I looked).  DOS maintains a common table in low memory known as
the system file table (SFT).  The size of this table is set by the files=
config.sys entry.  The handle table (aka Job File Table) contains one byte
entries that index the SFT;  these values are known as the system file numbers
SFT.  There is one SFT entry for each distinct file,  ie if a file is opened
more than once there is still only one SFT entry.  (MS-DOS keeps a reference
count and owner in the SFT to sort things out).  Since the SFN is 8 bits,
there can be no more than 255 entries in the SFT.  One can make the JFT
bigger than 255,  but this action dosen't buy you anything.
From: dixon@sagittarius.crd.ge.com (walt dixon)
Path: sagittarius!dixon


Walt Dixon		{arpa:		dixon@crd.ge.com	}
			{us mail:	ge crd			}
			{		po box 8		}
			{		schenectady,  ny 12345	}
			{phone:		518-387-5798		}

Walt Dixon dixon@crd.ge.com