Re: Please help: long filenames not showing up


Subject: Re: Please help: long filenames not showing up
From: Matthew Geier (matthew@arts.usyd.edu.au)
Date: Mon Aug 21 2000 - 19:30:50 EDT


> Michalowski Thierry wrote:
>
> No, I think this is not handled in samba, because they mimic the
> Windows behaviour, which does not preserve the short name along time.
>
> <example>
> You can check this by creating a file named "myfilebbbbbbbbbbb" .
> Windows will map it to "myfile~1" .
> Then, create in the same directory a file named "myfileaaaaaaaaaa" .
> Windows will map it to "myfile~1" and map the first file to "myfile~2"
> .
>
> </example>

 On a Samba share yes, on a windows machines, in most case no, the short
name will stay the same as BOTH long and short names are stored in the
filesystem. Fat32 stores the long name as a 'comment', and I understand
NTFS does it the otherway, the short name is stored as a 'comment'. With
the both names stored in the filesystem, it can keep some consistancy,
Samba in an effort to avoid having to syncronise metadata files (ala
NetAtalk's .AppleDouble
directories) builds the short names on the fly and just lives with the
occasional clash. The trade off is that a win32 API program will always
use the long name, and older 8.3 API programs are dying out, so the
occasional clash caused by unexpected short name changes is
just 'lived with', to avoid extra complexity needed for only a very
small subset of programs.

 32+ filenames in NetAtalk would need a better solution, you can't just
take the Samba approach and say 'well programs that use that API are
dying out', this solution that works most of the time will do.

 I've already hit the problem, with a user moving between Mac and PC.
They couldnt see they long named files from the Mac. I've since found a
reverse problem, some windows versions at least take great exception to
files ending in just . (Users Imac died, now using a Windows 98 laptop,
it refused to open files/folders with named ending in .)

-- 
Matthew Geier			matthew@arts.usyd.edu.au
Arts IT Unit			+61 2 9351 4713
Sydney University



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