Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!unido!mikros!mwtech!martin
From: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: 14 character limitation in filenames
Message-ID: <1076@mwtech.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jan 91 01:48:17 GMT
References: <290@sps.com>
Reply-To: martin@mwtech.UUCP (Martin Weitzel)
Organization: MIKROS Systemware, Darmstadt/W-Germany
Lines: 22

In article <290@sps.com> arm@sps.com (Annette Myjak) writes:
>can anyone explain why there's the 14 character limitation in filenames
>(11 + 3 for extension) in interactive unix?

Small note: This is not quite correctly stated. There's no such thing
like an "extension" in the UNIX filenames. If you do it in the common way,
i.e. use a dot to separate filename and extension, this costs you
one extra char, hence you have 10+3 (or 11+2 or 12+1 or 14+0 or ...)

But guess what: Some days ago I prepared a floppy on my UNIX system for
use with some other OS, hmm, I just can't remember the name, what was
it ... hmmm, anyway, it's a quite common OS, in much broader use than
UNIX and most people who have used it and then go over to UNIX find this
other system so much more friendly and easier to use. (If I could only
remember the name of that OS, it's so common!) Anyway, I found that I
couldn't copy a file named "hello-krc.c" onto said floppy because this
other system had only 8+3 characters for filename + extension. Since
so many people keep telling that the other system is much easier to
use than UNIX, I suppose 14 characters in a UNIX filename are in fact a
bad choice - it simply makes filenames too long to keep them in mind.
-- 
Martin Weitzel, email: martin@mwtech.UUCP, voice: 49-(0)6151-6 56 83