DOS filenames
DOS filenames can be 255 characters long and can contain
characters from the Unicode Character set, including
lower case letters and those that are not in IBM PC Extended
ASCII, like the Euro character (0x20ac
).
Filenames can also have spaces.
They cannot, however, start with a dot (.
) and
cannot contain the following special characters:
" / : * < > | ?
NOTE:
Note that although filenames can contain lowercase letters (unlike filenames
in the FAT12 and FAT16 versions of the DOS FSType supported in earlier releases of UnixWare),
the VFAT and FAT32 versions of the DOS filesystem introduced in the current release of UnixWare are
still not case sensitive.
This means that the filenames ABC, abc, and Abc
all refer to the same file in a DOS filesystem.
UnixWare support for lowercase letters only helps in preserving the case
of filenames for display purposes.
Traditional 8.3 DOS filenames (an 8 character name portion and a 3
character extension) are known as ``short names'' in a VFAT DOS
filesystem.
Filenames that can't be represented in the traditional 8.3 style are
known as ``long names''.
These include filenames that include:
-
lowercase letters
-
any of these characters: ``[ ] + = ; ,''
-
spaces
-
more than one dot (``.'')
-
a name portion longer than 8 characters, or an extension portion
longer than 3 characters (the rightmost dot separates the name
from the extension)
A long filename has a corresponding alias name,
derived from the long name and meeting all the
requirements of traditional 8.3 style DOS filenames.
On Windows systems a file can be accessed by its long name or
its alias name.
On UnixWare the alias name is internal to the system: it exists
only so that old applications can see the file.
The three letter extension in traditional DOS filenames
indicates if a file is executable (DOS does not provide
an equivalent to the ``executable'' permission bit).
Files ending in .EXE, .SYS or .COM
are programs, and files ending in .BAT
are batch (script) files.
If you create a file on a UnixWare system and transfer it to a
DOS system, avoid giving it one of these extensions.
Otherwise, DOS may mistake it for an executable program, with
unpredictable results.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 22 April 2004