Mail Archives: djgpp-workers/1998/07/21/21:21:08
In Windows 95 you can achieve the same effect as temporarily turning
off the numeric tails before creating a file with a long name by
doing two renames on the file -- first renaming it to its truncated
short name (e.g. rename libstdcxx.a to libstdcx.a) and then renaming
that back to the long name again (rename libstdcx.a to libstdcxx.a)
-- using the DOS `ren' command. The first renaming corrects the
short name, and the second does not affect the short name at all --
it just changes the long name. So you end up with a filename that
works whether or not LFN is enabled. This doesn't work under
Windows 98 though -- the short name is mangled again by the second
rename.
I think supplying a utility to do this for people would be safer than
encouraging them to adapt their registries. Unfortunately djgpp's
`rename' and `_rename' functions seem to have the same problem that
the Windows 98 `ren' command has. It's still possible (but crude) to
make the program output a batch file, which would work under Windows
95 (but not under Windows 98). The program would require LFN support
to be enabled while it runs.
An alternative solution would be for maintainers of packages that
now use long filenames to include a batch file to rename the files
suitably. All this would still only work under Windows 95; to make
something that would also work under Windows 98 I don't think you
could avoid altering the registry.
A utility could be made to work under both '95 and '98, by
temporarily altering the registry setting -- read the current
setting, then turn off the numeric tails before doing the renames,
then restore the original setting. I think Richard Dawe has working
registry reading code for djgpp (which works through a standard
VxD), so it would be possible to write this utility using djgpp.
--
george DOT foot AT merton DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk
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