Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 08:21:32 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Juan Manuel Guerrero <ST001906 AT HRZ1 DOT HRZ DOT TU-Darmstadt DOT De>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: djlsr203 (990819)
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On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Juan Manuel Guerrero wrote:

> 1)     MULTIPLE DOT test.
>        This code tests for occuriences of multiple dots
>        in the directory part of the path.

I believe this is already handled by DJTAR.  If you can come up with an 
example that doesn't work, please post it.

> 2)     NOT ALLOWED CHARS test.
>        This code will delete from the whole tar entry (dir part and file name part)
>        all spaces and tabs.
>        It will also replace chars that are not allowed on MSDOS, especially
>        + -> x
>        = -> #

This and most of the other conversions you suggested are against the 
design of DJTAR.  DJTAR only performs a limited number of specific 
corrections, and leaves the rest to the user (it prompts for an 
alternative name, or can get the list of transcriptions from a file).

If you want a fully automatic conversion, use the DJGPP port of GNU Tar 
(v2gnu/tar112b.zip), it does all the automatic conversions you describe,
and then some.

> 5)     SPECIAL FILES test.
>        The definition of a special file is COMPLETELY ARBITRARY
>        and represents only my opinion.
>        Renaming of special files:
>           .foo            -->  _foo
>           .lex.           -->  _lex.
>           .tab.           -->  _tab.
>           config.h.in     -->  config_h.in

This is already done by DJTAR (although the results are slightly 
different) when it handles the leading dots and multiple dots.

>           ChangeLog-      -->  CLog
>           ChangeLog.      -->  CLog

This is actually a bad idea: at least Emacs already knows about the 
truncated name "changelo" and enters a special editing mode suitable for 
the ChangeLog files.  Converting these files to a different name will 
break that.

In general, any file name that can be converted to a valid DOS name by 
simple truncation to 8+3 limits, should not be otherwise mangled, or else 
it will break the transparent support for long names.  For example, if a 
Makefile refers to ChangeLog, then it will not work with the above 
renaming, but *will* work with the default "changelo".

> Although my code is probably of poor quality i send you a patch
> anyway.

Thanks.  I will probably correct some of these.