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From: mack@humming.UUCP (Ed Mackenty)
Newsgroups: comp.os.eunice,news.software.b
Subject: Re: Messy-Dos Depth (was Re: Eunice can't deal...)
Message-ID: <178@humming.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-May-87 13:58:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: humming.178
Posted: Fri May 15 13:58:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 17-May-87 19:42:18 EDT
References: <1082@epimass.UUCP> <18509@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <31@winfree.UUCP>
Reply-To: mack@humming.UUCP (Ed Mackenty)
Organization: Kurzweil A.I. Waltham, Mass.
Lines: 26
Keywords: MS-DOS directory-depth
Summary: MS-DOS does have a depth restriction
Xref: mnetor comp.os.eunice:50 news.software.b:624

In article <31@winfree.UUCP> bdale@winfree.UUCP (Bdale Garbee) writes:
>Messy-Dos does not have a depth limitation.  It can get somewhat slow
>when you get very deep though... but I've run 14 or 15 levels without
>problems, and there's no theoretical reason that I know of that you
>can't go deeper.

There is a limit on the number of characters in the current directory
path specification: 64.  This restriction is not imposed by the file
system design, but by DOS.  Check the documentation for DOS INT 21H
Functions 3BH (CHDIR) and 47H (Get Current Directory) in the DOS Technical
Reference Manual.  That's the only place I know of where this is documented.

It seems that you should be able to create files below this level and just
reference them by specifying the part of the path that is over 64
characters.  This does not work, however.  If you CD to a directory
whose path is almost 64 character long, you can create files in it, and
MKDIR directories, but you cannot create any files in those sub-directories.
You get the "Invalid directory" error.

DISCLAIMER:  I *hate* MS-DOS.  I only know this much about it because I
	get paid to use it.  I guess I'm just a software mercenary!
-- 
- MacK		Edmund R. MacKenty                                         
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