Re: [lmi] 31-character file-name limit

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Tue, 14 Oct 2014 17:10:41 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:

GC> On 2014-10-12 21:50Z, Vadim Zeitlin wrote:
GC> [...]
GC> >  And I have to wonder whether it is, because this 31 character limit seems
GC> > quite arbitrary to me. Looking at the various file systems at
GC> > 
GC> >   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Limits
GC> > 
GC> > I see exactly one of them imposing such limit, and this is the completely
GC> > obsolete HFS which was only ever used by Apple machines not targeted by
GC> > LMI anyhow (well, there is also another one called PramFS, but I'm pretty
GC> > sure that a file system I've never so much as heard about should not enter
GC> > into practical consideration). So where does this come from and could this
GC> > limit be relaxed to be at least 32 (which happens to be the length of the
GC> > name of this particular file) or maybe even 64 or 128, as there doesn't
GC> > seem to be any technical reason to disallow even longer file names?
GC> 
GC> It originally came from an old boost.org guideline. I like limits in 
general:
GC> they force us to say more in less space.
GC> 
GC> We can keep everything nicely descriptive by changing the prefix, e.g.:
GC>             11111111112222222222333
GC>   123456789012345678901234567890123
GC> - wx_test_about_dialog_version.cpp
GC> + wxt_about_dialog_version.cpp
GC> - wx_test_configurable_settings.cpp
GC> + wxt_configurable_settings.cpp
GC> and thus consistently for all the pending new files. (It seems okay NOT
GC> to rename anything that's in today's HEAD (revision 5984), thus retaining
GC> 'main_wx_test.cpp' and names in makefiles like 'wx_test$(EXEEXT)'.

 If possible, I'd really like to retain "wx_test_" prefix instead of the
much more cryptic "wxt_" which, I believe, would be completely
incomprehensible to the uninitiated. It is also consistent with the use of
"test" as either prefix or suffix in many other files (72 as of today).

GC> As for the particular limit of 31, see:
GC>   http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2004/08/70246.php
GC> which says it's the real maximum for ISO9660 Level 2. The wikipedia article
GC> you cited says otherwise, so I googled a little and found quite a variety of
GC> answers from seemingly-credible sources; I guess the operative answer 
depends
GC> on the operating system and perhaps the hardware.

 This depends only on the OS and the last OS in common use that could not
have Joliet support was Windows 95 (it could also have it, but I believe it
was only available as an add-on). Even 10 years ago, when the above message
was written, Joliet was widespread. Today the question of whether Joliet is
supported or not is just not relevant any more (granted, CD/DVDs themselves
are not relevant any more neither...).

GC> I don't know whether that would have worked with a longer filename.

 It definitely would have as both you and your co-workers use Windows XP
AFAIK.

GC> How much 'git' trouble does renaming actually create?

 Not much, it won't be really a problem, but just an additional hassle.

 Anyhow, I'll rename the files then but before I do it, I'd like to ask you
if I can rename them to wx_test_{about_version,config_settings}.cpp
respectively, which are the most readable versions of their current names I
could find? Again, I'd strongly prefer to keep the wx_test prefix, so while
using anything else starting with it wouldn't be a problem, I'd really like
to avoid using "wxt_".

 Please let me know if you agree with the variants above or have any other
proposals, thanks in advance,
VZ