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From: frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: Tar - max filename length 100; why ?
Message-ID: <1764@riscy.enet.dec.com>
Date: 8 Oct 90 13:47:30 GMT
References: <3549@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Sender: newsdaemon@riscy.enet.dec.com
Reply-To: frank@croton.enet.dec.com (Frank Wortner)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 16

It's basically an ill-considered design decision by the original
author(s) of tar.  The
restriction dates back to the first version --- back in V7 days.  In any
event, tar was
such an improvement over its predecesor, tp, that no one really
complained.  Tp limited
file names to 32 characters!

If you need to archive or interchange files with long (>100 character)
names, you could
consider GNU tar, cpio, dump, or, perhaps, a program of your own
concoction.  You would
lose compatibility with regular tar, but it's than not being able to
tape those files at all.

						Frank