Help! modifying os to support >14 char filenames (sys V.3)

[Michael Meissner]

In article <4040 at auspex.auspex.com> guy at auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
writes:

| >In U*X a directory entry is defined in dir.h -- you _may_
| >redefine the maximum length & recompile.
| 
| And then dump and restore all your file systems, since you've then just
| changed the on-disk file format.  Also, fix up a bunch of programs that
| read directories directly to use "readdir()" instead, and make sure no
| programs "know" that file names are limited to 14 characters.
| 
| >Why have you got only 14-char filenames?
| 
| Presumably because he's using a system with only the V7-based S5 file
| system. 

The historical reason for the 14 character filename is that under V7
the directory entry was the inode + filename within directory.  Since
the inode was 2 bytes, making filenames 14 bytes meant that all
directory entries where the same size, but not so big it wasted space
for the average filesystem.
--
Michael Meissner	email: meissner at osf.org		phone: 617-621-8861
Open Software Foundation, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142

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