Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] 8.1
From: Rob Newberry (rob@eats.com)
Date: Wed Jan 21 1998 - 08:39:02 EST
> anyone here tried to see what happens to netatalk when it talks to os8.1
> with its hfs+ ? eg., file name length...?
Although HFS+ does SUPPORT long file names (255 chars) in the filesystem,
the MacOS itself does NOT support this feature yet. So currently, there
is no way to get/set a filename longer than 31 chars using the MacOS.
Since no other OS reads/writes HFS+ volumes at this point, well, you can
probably see where I'm going with this.
Apple has said that Rhapsody will support HFS+, and Rhapsody already
supports 255-character filenames, so when that happens, we will see.
Apple has also said that support for the long file name feature of HFS+
will be in future MacOS releases. At the earliest, that would be Allegro,
which is scheduled for mid year. Keep in mind, however, that the changes
will require changes in applications as well -- the current APIs use
pascal strings (i.e., length byte at beginning), which limit you to
255-char full PATH names (i.e., not just filenames); and most MacOS
programs use FSSpec records, which only have 63-characters of space for
filenames. Clearly Apple will need to deliver a name-mangler similar to
Microsoft's Win95/NT support for FAT volumes.
My bet is, however, that long file names on AFP volumes will require an
updated version of AFP because the current AFP network requests probably
don't have room for long file names, either. That probably wouldn't be
very hard to add to netatalk, but until it happens, Macs (even if they DO
support long file names) will continue to get their short names.
(I think that's the case -- a developer can correct me if I'm plain wrong
-- I haven't looked at the code in a while.)
So, the short answer is, for all practical purposes, HFS+ doesn't do
anything for long file names yet, because the OS doesn't support the
feature in the filesystem yet. And therefore, there is no impact
whatsoever on AFP network volumes.
Rob
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sat Dec 18 1999 - 16:30:29 EST