9fans archive / 1998 / 10 / 32 /    prev next

From: James A. Robinson Jim.Robinson@Sta...
Subject: [9fans] file name lengths
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 14:29:39 -0700

 
> There's the specific problem that 28 bytes is just too short for some
> useful names, especially when some characters take three bytes.  (One
> place where this always shows up is with ftpfs.)  But more generally,
> 9p is not just about files, since every service presents itself via
> 9p.  Even if humans don't type long names very often they might like
> to click on them in acme, and programs might want use long names
> without having to go through an extra layer of indirection.

Was there some particular efficency reason to limit the filenames
to such a small number of bytes?  I can certainly understand not
thinking that sane people don't make reeeealllllly long filenames,
but it is nice not to have a limit that affects ftping things that
have long naming schemes. As I recall, netscape's distributions
have a sensible naming scheme, but one that makes it really long.


Jim