Re: [boost] 31 character limit for filenames

From: Jonathan Wakely (cow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-19 12:01:24

On Wed, Aug 18, 2004 at 08:45:08PM +0200, John Torjo wrote:

> 
> >Okay, it's time to ask again: do we still need to enforce the 
> >31-character limit on filenames? AFAIK, we have this for MacOS 9, only. 
> >Is that platform still significant for Boost users?
> >
> 
> After reading the other posts, I sort of agree with 31 char limit.
> But, when archiving/backing up to CD, I always use a .zip or .tarball - 
> so this wouldn't affect me at all.

This was exactly my thought - backups should always use some archival
programme. Otherwise there's no guarantee the files being backed up
won't exceed the limit. Boost can keep all its filenames to less than
31 chars, but it doesn't help you backup your system if other files have
long names. This is a general problem that Boost can't solve by having
short filenames.

> Do people back up boost "raw" files?

If they do, they should stop. Why should Boost be the only set of files
in the world that promise they're safe to backup without archiving?
I wouldn't report a bug to my OS vendor if they shipped with a big
filename that I couldn't put on a CD, why is it considered a bug in
Boost?

I can imagine someone carrying around a CD with Boost on and adding the
CD path to their compiler's include list ... but I can imagine a lot of
things, doesn't mean anyone actually does it, or that it's a good idea.

Does keeping the filenames short actually enable anything useful?

jon

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