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Aucbvax.6021 fa.info-vax utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!info-vax Mon Feb 1 14:53:02 1982 80-character filenames >From dan@BBN-UNIX Mon Feb 1 14:47:50 1982 There's one fairly amusing use for long names. On a system which supports multiple names on a file (which UNIX sort of does--I don't know about VMS), a big limit allows you to comment the filename. That is, you give the file a short name as a handle, and a longer name which contains a description of the contents. This is especially nice if the system allows embedding spaces, parentheses, etc. in the name. So a file might be known as "Notes" and as "Notes - how all this stuff goes together". Notice that by making the long name contain the short name as a prefix, I can coerce UNIX's ls into displaying the two names together. Unfortunately, dealing with those long names is a pain, though judicious use of the star convention helps.

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