Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 09:55:28 +0200 (IST) From: Eli Zaretskii X-Sender: eliz AT is To: "Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH]" cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Short file names In-Reply-To: <38B6B42B.CE95C0A2@americasm01.nt.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: dj-admin AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH] wrote: > Make 2 files, on named "a.cpp" and another named "a.cpp~" (I was using emacs > when I discovered this), the SFN's for these files will likely be "a.cpp" and > "a~1.cpp". Now try copying both files to another directory. There is a 50% > chance that one of the files will dissapear! Yep, a known misfeature in Windows' half-hearted implementation of long file names. But what alternative does one have if one wants a dual-boot DOS/Windows system? AFAIK, there is no alternative. If you could turne the numeric tails off, you probably don't need a dual system, in which case you shouldn't be turning them on in the first place. (How frequently do you copy directories *and* care about backups on top of that, anyway?) As an aside, if you use Emacs on Windows 9X, turn on numeric backups, and you will never see such problems, even with numeric tails turned off. Using numeric backups is a good idea anyway. In any case, if you care about the backup files (that's the only ones which can disappear), you should always use "cp -b" (and for a good measure, add "-V numbered" as well), since Windows is full of such atrocities even without the numeric tails issue: the file-name letter-case can easily get you into similar trouble.