Aucbvax.6021
fa.info-vax
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax
Mon Feb 1 14:53:02 1982
80-character filenames
>From dan@BBN-UNIX Mon Feb 1 14:47:50 1982
There's one fairly amusing use for long names. On a system
which supports multiple names on a file (which UNIX sort of
does--I don't know about VMS), a big limit allows you to
comment the filename. That is, you give the file a short
name as a handle, and a longer name which contains a description
of the contents. This is especially nice if the system allows
embedding spaces, parentheses, etc. in the name. So a file might
be known as "Notes" and as "Notes - how all this stuff goes together".
Notice that by making the long name contain the short name as a prefix,
I can coerce UNIX's ls into displaying the two names together.
Unfortunately, dealing with those long names is a pain, though
judicious use of the star convention helps.
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