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From: davel@hpisoa1.HP.COM (Dave Lennert)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Limitations on Standard Filenames in X?  System V Strikes Again.
Message-ID: <3970001@hpisoa1.HP.COM>
Date: Thu, 10-Sep-87 13:52:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpisoa1.3970001
Posted: Thu Sep 10 13:52:41 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Sep-87 18:02:53 EDT
References: <8708230036.AA01894@oahu.cs.ucla.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 30

> It may have been done by somebody under the delusion that it was necessary to
> pass the SVVS; however, it certainly is not *required* by the SVVS.  The SVID
> says nothing whatsoever about a 14-character maximum filename size; ...

This is true.  The reason that HP-UX limits filenames to 14 characters is
for System V compatibility, which is stricter than SVID compatibility.

There are many System V applications which assume that filenames are 14
characters at most.  For example, code like:

		char name[14];
	or
		printf("%14s\n", filename);

(True, in this day and age directory reading should go through opendir()
et. al.; however, there are many software vendors and customers who have
not come up to the future yet...)

As a direct result, HP-UX has been able to import many SysV applications
without change which several BSD systems have not been able to.

The best solution I'm aware of is to provide two types of filesystems,
one that supports 14 char max filenames and one that supports larger.
Then customers with applications which cannot tolerate the latter can
configure systems with only the former type of filesystem.

I would not be surprised to see such a solution appear in HP-UX in 
the future.

-Dave Lennert   HP   ihnp4!hplabs!hpda!davel