Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cs.yale.edu!fischer-michael From: fischer-michael@cs.yale.edu (Michael Fischer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Tos File limit was: Major Problems Unpacking 'lzh' Files Message-ID: <27995@cs.yale.edu> Date: 10 Jan 91 14:27:35 GMT References: <1991Jan9.090428.29529@wam.umd.edu> <1991Jan9.180133.10001@uvm.edu> Sender: news@cs.yale.edu Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158 Lines: 30 Nntp-Posting-Host: ginkgo.theory.cs.yale.edu Originator: fischer@ginkgo.CS.Yale.Edu In article <1991Jan9.180133.10001@uvm.edu> pegram@kira.UUCP (Robert B. Pegram) writes: >Um, I regularly have more than 113 files in a _SubDirectory_ the >problem only crops up with the _Root_ directory. It has to do with >the number of sectors reserved for the File Allocation Table. I >believe that MeSsDos floppies have fewer sectors reserved than >regularly formatted ST floppies (Note: the space set aside for the FAT >on floppies is configurable on several PD and shareware ST formatters, >hypercopy comes to mind as one). Also, this problem may not show up, >or may be at a much larger number of files for hard disk root >directories. Why subdirectories haven't got this problem, I don't >really know, it could be that they again have the problem with a >really *large* number of files. > >Maybe a quick Dos - Tos disk format refresher is in order? A Dos/Tos disk is divided up into several fixed-sized regions: boot sector, FAT (2 copies, actually), root directory, and data. The sizes of these regions are determined when the disk is formatted and can differ from disk to disk. The FAT must be big enough to hold the entries describing the allocation of clusters in the data region; beyond that, bigger isn't better. The root directory on a floppy is typically 7 sectors, which is big enough for 112 entries. On a hard disk, the root directory is often made considerably larger. Subdirectories are stored like files in the data region and can be any length. That's why the size restriction doesn't apply to them. -- ================================================== | Michael Fischer | ==================================================