Re: umsdos/uvfat

Gordon Chaffee (chaffee@CS.Berkeley.EDU)
Fri, 6 Feb 1998 10:46:22 -0800 (PST)


H. Peter Anvin writes:
> Delete a file. Create a new file. Voila, the new file got the old
> file's long filename...

Not a very accurate statement. I'd suggest trying it before making
this sort of misleading claim. If you want to make this claim precisely,
you could say this:

1. Create a vfat file that has a longname and a short alias
2. Remount filesystem as msdos
3. Delete filename by its short alias name.
4. Create a new file (different name)
5. Remount filesystem as vfat
6. Look at directory. You should only see the new file. This is
because there is a checksum that binds the short alias to the
longname. However, it is only an 8 bit checksum, so in 1 out
of 256 cases, the new name will be linked with the original
long filename under vfat.

> vfat is a *much* worse hack than umsdos. Personally, I would suggest
> ignoring this Micro$oft monstrosity as much as possible.

They are very similar hacks. I thought that umsdos was a very clever hack
on top of msdos, and I used to use it quite regularly on a very limited
space laptop. However, I'd hardly call umsdos any better than vfat.
They are both hacks serving different purposes.

- Gordon
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