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From: ART100@psuvm.psu.edu (Andy Tefft)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: pathname length survey
Message-ID: <91008.132712ART100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 91 18:27:12 GMT
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 18

The prodos 8 MLI calls apparently limit you to pathnames that
are 128 bytes long - 64 for the prefix (at least when you query
the prefix it will only let you query 64 characters, so I assume
even if you add one directory at a time to the prefix 64 chars
is max) and 64 for the filename (which can of course include
subdirectories).

Now, if a program were to ignore the prefix for simplicity and
use full pathnames at all times, there would be a limit of
64 characters on the full pathnames. I'm wondering if this
is a reasonable limit, or if it's worth the trouble to mess
with prefixes (the problem here is there may be two volumes
involved) to allow longer filenames.

I don't have a hard drive, so I was wondering how many directory
levels people typically keep on their drives, how long they let
pathnames get, and how often a full pathname would come in at
over 64 characters. Please reply by e-mail.