Re: [Groff] new groff_differences.man

[Clarke Echols]

Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> > In the past was there an effort to stick to 14 character file names?
> > There are only a few files that exceed this suggesting there was.

<snip>

> How does this limit affect operation?  Are the file names truncated to
> 14 characters, cutting off the last characters?  Or does the
> truncation work like with DOS, using 8+3 for cutting?

Unix doesn't care and never did that I am aware of.  As long as the total
length was 14 characters or less it didn't matter.  You could have one
character, a dot, and 12 suffix characters or 12 characters, a dot, and
a one-character suffix, and it was equally happy.

When I had to fight the problem (Starbase graphics library function
names had atrocious man page filenames for a 14-character limit --
some had identical names until the 16th or 18th character!), we had to
get creative at times and abbreviate portions of the name starting at
or near the beginning until we reached the requisite 14-character maximum.
The Sys V Rel 2 expansion to 256 characters was welcome, though I have yet
to discover why any sane person would want more than 25 or so.  Even 14 for
the limit makes me wonder where that limit came from since it is not an
integer multiple of 2.

CLarke