With the advent of Windows 95 and the NT server, our server can now utilize file names longer than 8 characters. Is there a way in ARev 3.12 to create a file with an extended file name? Under all the tests I have done, ARev truncates the extended file name to 8 characters.

AREV only supports the plain DOS 8.3 naming convention. I'll look into designing AREV objects which create longer file names for you.

Eric

The safest bet would be to use a function which accepted your long filename as a parameter, created a zero byte file with that name, then returned the corresponding 8.3 filename for use by native AREV.

eg.]

filename8.3 =createlongfile("c:\verylongfilename")

* filename8.3 is thus set to "c:\verylo~1"

Does this suit your requirements?

]]filename8.3=createlongfile("c:\verylongfilename")

]]* filename8.3 is thus set to "c:\verylo~1"

Great idea. But if there exists another similar name, like "c:\verylongverse" it will be identified as "c:\verylo~2"

There's no control on the numeric allocation.

David,

That's why the function returns the 8.3 name, so that AREV can then OSOPEN and manipulate the correct file. Getting a short 8.3 filename from the long is reasonably easy.

As for getting the long filename given the 8.3 name, that's another (harder yet not impossible) problem. The long file name is stored in the FAT entries adjacent to the 8.3 filename FAT entry. The longfilename can use one or more FAT entries, depending on its length. Any code to do this will have to negotiate NTFS and FAT volumes differently.

Windows 95,98 & NT store the long filenames in unicode, not ASCII, which adds a little more complexity to the exercise.

If the long filename doesn't exist, the AREV utility it creates it (zero bytes), and returns the 8.3 name. If the long filename exists, the function returns the 8.3 name for AREV to use subsequently.

Eric

All this is possible to do with standard Arev tools, albeit clumsily. The key is to PCPERFORM DOS commands:

1. Create the file using OSWRITE

2. PCPERFORM 'ren …

3. PCPERFORM 'dir … (pipe this output of this command to a DOS file

4. Parse the piped file to retrieve short and long names.

Make sure you have made a full backup before trialling this code.

It has been tested under Windows 95, and using Novell 4.x.

$MAKELFN is a utility to to create files with

long file names. The function returns the short

file name alias which AREV can then use. If the

long filename already exists then the function

simply returns the short filename to use, without

creating anything.

- Eric

To create the object, run the following code:

A=\02000000000000000000E92F02FF4D41\

A:=\4B454C464EFF436F7079726967687420\

A:=\28632920313939392062792045726963\

A:=\20456D752EFF00000000000000000000\

FOR I=1 TO 31

A:=\00000000000000000000000000000000\

NEXT I

A:=\0000000000000000000000002EC7063E\

A:=\0200000E1F0E07BB3C01BE3A00B90001\

A:=\C60700C604004346E2F6B40DBA01002E\

A:=\FF1E0A00BF3A00F3A40E1FB86C71BB02\

A:=\00B90000BA1100BE3A00BF0100CD2172\

A:=\512EA33A01B43E2E8B1E3A01B86071B1\

A:=\01B580BE3A00BF3C01CD217235BB3C01\

A:=\8A1780FA007408432EFF063E02EBF1BE\

A:=\3C012E8B0E3E02B40F2EFF1E0A0057F3\

A:=\A45F2E8B0E3E0233C033D2B4102EFF1E\

A:=\0A00CB\

OPEN 'BP' TO BP.FILE THEN

WRITE A TO BP.FILE, "$MAKELFN"

END

* Remember to catalog $makelfn

* Syntax:

DECLARE FUNCTION MAKELFN

SHORTNAME=MAKELFN("C:\Thisisaverylongfilename")

OSOPEN SHORTNAME TO HANDLE THEN

• whatever you need to do goes here

END

Eric:

 Thanks for your suggestions.  I appreciate your offer to create an ARev object, but I may not need it at this point.  One of my fellow programmers has taken your comments and the approach suggested by Victor Engel to develop an RBasic program.  He is working through complications with existing file names.

   I had failed to mention in my initial inquiry that we will be using the extended names in conjuction with the PDisk.

Dan,

Good to see you've got several ways forward. Your programmer might also be interested in LFNDIR.EXE, a PC Magazine utility to list long filenames from DOS.

Eric Emu

"I like hex - it's better than sex"

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