POV-Ray : Newsgroups : moray.binaries : Feature request : Re: Feature request Server Time
29 Jun 2024 00:01:02 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Feature request  
From: Ian Burgmyer
Date: 30 Jun 2001 13:34:16
Message: <3b3e0d98$1@news.povray.org>

news:3B3C68E6.1835E677@home.se...
> I know! As this program is made only for windows, why not use the
> extension .Moray ?

That would work if it weren't for the FAT file system.  You see, for Windows
to have the long filenames, they have to fake it.  What it does is have the
long filename (LFN) entry (i.e. "Program Files"), and have the real DOS name
for it right after (i.e. "PROGRA~1").  With extensions longer than three
letters, it has to fake it as well, because DOS only supports 8.3 names
(eight letter filenames, three letter extensions).  Some file compression
packages don't completely support long filenames (for instance, the DOS
version of PKZIP doesn't work well with Windows 2000) and won't create the
LFN entry in the ZIP file.  So, after you unzip it, the user is forced to
rename all the files back to the proper extension.

While on this topic, I think it's interesting to note that volume labels on
partitions are also FAT entries!  I think it's the first one on the disk.
They're limited to 11 letters, and are always capital (Windows will display
them with the first letter capitalized and the others lowercase if you
desire).  They are like DOS filenames.  Say you have the volume label
HARDDRIVE.  It would show up on the drive as HARDDRIV.E.  Just as if you had
the label VOLUMELABEL, it would be VOLUMELA.BEL.  Cool, huh?  ;-)  Volume
labels allow for spaces, though.  I don't know if they're a real space (char
32) or if they're converted into a NULL (char 0 or 255).

The above doesn't apply to NTFS partitions, because as far as I know, they
support long filenames right out of the package (with no special tricks),
and support long volume labels (my NTFS drive sports "Windows 2000", which
is 12 characters).

-Ian


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