On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Daniel Rodriguez <[email protected]> wrote: > So, what I am pointing out, is, if you are going to put datafiles on a > drive, FAT16 or FAT32, and you think you are limited to just using an 8.3 > format for a filename, the old 255 character limitation allows you some > flexability in your naming convention.
With VFAT, you're not limited to 8.3. Without VFAT, you're still limited to 8.3 file names. The 255 character limit you refer to is the maximum length of a path, not a file name. You're limited to 255 characters in a path regardless of FAT16, FAT32, 8.3 or VFAT, or even NTFS. (It's actually an OS limit, not a filesystem limit.) > I also remember several utilties that came out that allowed you to create > long filenames in DOS. ... Then it would only record the first seven > characters follwed by a ~, then a three letter extension. Heh. While a valid approach, that's not really storing long file names in the filesystem. It's just using the regular FAT filesystem, and then maintaining a separate catalog of alternate names elsewhere. This matters because LFNs are stored *in* the filesystem, in the directory. Filesystem tools which were not VFAT aware, run on a FAT filesystem containing VFAT LFNs, would generally make a mess of things, since they saw the VFAT -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
