Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!princeton!udel!rochester!bbn!uwmcsd1!marque!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!neil
From: neil@hwcs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Renaming Folders
Keywords: I can't really think of one
Message-ID: <1867@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 8 Jun 88 09:23:56 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Heriot-Watt U., Scotland
Lines: 56





I have a folder 'ALCYON.C' on the HD here at work but I don't think Gulam
likes it because of the '.'. So today I decided to rename it by editing the
sector containing the directory entry (STOP!! No don't do it I hear you cry).

I suucessfully found the sector and changed the trailing 'C' into a space
($20) since that is what other folder entries had. But it didn't work.
Every time I tried to open that folder I was dumped back on the root of
the partition. Why? I tried a few different names like 'ALCYON_C', 'DEVKITCC' 
and 'ALCYONCC.DRI' and they all gave the same result. Only the original name
would yeild the correct result ie. a working folder.

A 32 byte directory entry looks like this:-
(I am relating this from the GEMDOS reference manual)

                          8 Character primary name
                         /
                        /        3 Character extension
                       /        /
 _____________________/  ______/   Attribute byte
/                     \ /      \  /
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F
                  \___/ \___/ \___/ \_________/
                   \     \     \     \
                    \     \     \     File length
                     \     \     \ 
                      \     \     Starting cluster
                       \     \
                        \     Creation date
                         \
                          \
                           Creation time

All I changed was the name and extension. Nothing else. I hope the new ROM
Frename does a better job renaming folders than I did. I have since restored
the original folder name and its OK again. But I would like an explanation
as to what went wrong. Is there more to renaming a folder than just changing
its name?

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"I think all right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being
told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and
tired. I'm certainly not and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am!"
- Monty Python

 Neil Forsyth                           JANET:  neil@uk.ac.hw.cs
 Dept. of Computer Science              ARPA:   neil@cs.hw.ac.uk
 Heriot-Watt University                 UUCP:   ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil
 Edinburgh
 Scotland
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