Message-ID:	<3515f0e7.flying-brick@flying-brick.caverock.net.nz>
From:	Eric Gillespie <viking AT flying-brick DOT caverock DOT co DOT nz>
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com, opendos-developer AT delorie DOT com, opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date:	Mon, 23 Mar 1998 17:19:34 NZT-12DST
Subject:	Re: Long file names under plain DOS
Reply-to:	viking AT flying-brick DOT caverock DOT net DOT nz

Hi all - my reactions to LFN under OpenDOS.

Just  for the record, under OpenDOS 7.01 with the Long FileName support, if
you use COMMAND.COM (7.02) to create/modify/delete a file, the long
filename gets created  or deleted correctly - however,  if a non-LFN aware
program gets a hold  of the files, the LFN doesn't get removed, but neither
does it get reattached to another file (I think there is a CRC in the 
directory entry to prevent this... I'm not sure). 

I have tested XTGold, which deleted the file but not the LFN, and I also
tested a few other non-DJGPP programs. All showed the same behaviour. Also
as an aside, if a directory has one of these LFN entries in it, and the
originating file gets cleared but not the LFN, the directory cannot be
deleted until the offending entry is zeroed with a sector editor (such as
Norton's DISKEDIT)

My setup is LFN=Y, and any DJGPP program compiled under 2.01 seems to load 
long filenames (i.e. unzip, when I re-compiled it, understood LFN, as does 
vim-5.0).  ls lists longname equivalents, and bash picks up the long 
filenames too...

Mind you, as others have said, the LONGNAME tsr module is not without its 
problems - when listing some directories, I also get the root directory 
tacked on to the end of the listing, but only in some directories - other 
directories are fine.  I haven't figured this one out yet...also if I use 
the standard commandline (just LONGNAME /I) and dir a floppy, then change 
floppies, and run dir again, I get the previous floppies directory (as if 
the cache hasn't been flushed by the diskchange) I get around this by 
specifying /C:0 in addition to /I on the commandline.

The searching routines seem to take a longer time than without LFN - i ran
DJTARX on unzip532.tgz with and without LFN and DJTAR took nearly eight
times as long with LFN!

So there are the problems I have come across (so far).

I've been trying to get some response out of the mailing lists concerned 
(opendos, opendos-devel, opendos-support AT delorie DOT com) but haven't had any 
replies for this yet...  does anyone else have anything else to mention?

Thanks...
The Viking
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