WARNING: This is far from being a complete program or documentation! This is a test release, use it with great care! Keep visiting the Star LFN homepage at http://sta.c64.org/starlfn.html for further releases.
Currently, the program has only experimental read-only support for VFAT, the way file names are stored by Windows 95/98! This means that, if VFAT support is enabled and you're writing files with long names onto the disk, the long names will be destroyed because the program can't write VFAT yet!
This program is being designed to emulate the long file name functions that are present in the DOS shells of Windows 95/98 but under plain DOS 4.0 or above.
Because of the intensive disk access, a disk cache in write-back mode is highly recommended!
Programs similar to this one are the following:
DOSLFN, by Henrik Haftmann and Jason Hood, is the best you can get (download it from http://adoxa.altervista.org/doslfn/). If you want support for VFAT, FAT32 and national code pages, this is the program you need!
LFNDOS, by Chris Jones, was the one in the lead before (the old homepage is not available anymore) but it is obsolete now because it has inferior functionality and it contains some apparent bugs that may cause data loss and which, as the program is abandoned, will, probably, be never fixed.
A proven bug is that, two directories with potentially the same short alias – except for the numeric tail – will, eventually, get the same short alias. E.g. if you create "LONGNAMEDIR1" and "LONGNAMEDIR2" in an empty directory, both will get the short alias "LONGNA~1" which confuses DOS and CHKDSK will destroy one of the directories!
LONGNAME, in Caldera OpenDOS, refuses to run under original MS-DOS or DOS clones other than OpenDOS – unless patched – and contains some annoying bugs.
DOSLFN, in Nuts & Bolts 2.0, runs under DOS 7.x (the DOS of Windows 95/98) only, has several bugs and locks up quite often.
There is a collection of such programs at http://sta.c64.org/lfnemu.html.
This program has initially been tested in a less risky environment (see the file access mode below), therefore its core is, probably, more robust and stable than any of the programs mentioned above. In this program, you can choose between two operational modes:
File access: Long file names are stored in a hidden system file called "longname.dat" in each directory. This is the default mode, which is compatible with any operating system that has an able DOS shell because it involves significantly less hacking.
Disk access: Long file names are stored in the disk area allocated for the directory. This is VFAT, the method Windows uses. In VFAT mode, this program supports uncompressed FAT12 and FAT16 partitions only and has been reported to fail on SCSI hard disks. WARNING: This mode is currently experimental and read-only!
Both modes work with ASSIGN'ed, JOIN'ed and SUBST'ed drives. Disk access mode refuses to show long file names on CD drives and network drives because these are stored with a completely different method, not VFAT.
The only way to exchange long file names between these two modes is putting the files into an archive, with a LFN-aware archiver, in one operational mode and extracting the files in the other mode.
The parameter syntax is the following:
STARLFN [-|/]<options>
<options>:
I: Installs the program. As a secondary parameter, you can specify the operational mode: D for disk access (VFAT), F for file access (hidden system file, default).
U: Uninstalls the program.
Without any options specified, the program will show usage information.
The following INT 21h functions have already been implemented:
Flush buffers and cache (AX=710Dh and CX=0/1).
Make directory (AX=7139h). Uses and updates data base.
Remove directory (AX=713Ah). Uses and updates data base.
Change directory (AX=713Bh). Uses data base.
Delete file (AX=7141h or AH=41h). Uses and updates data base.
Get/set file attributes (AX=7143h and BL=0/1). Uses data base.
Get current directory (AX=7147h). Uses data base.
Find first matching file (AX=714Eh). Uses data base.
Find next matching file (AX=714Fh). Uses data base.
Rename file (AX=7156h or AH=56h). Uses and updates data base.
Get true name of file (AX=7160h and CL=0). Uses data base.
Get short name of file (AX=7160h and CL=1). Uses data base.
Get long name of file (AX=7160h and CL=2). Uses data base.
Create or open file (AX=716Ch). Uses and updates data base.
Get volume info (AX=71A0h).
Close file search (AX=71A1h).
Generate short alias (AX=71A8h).
Fake INT 21h functions:
Convert date stamps (AX=71A7h and BL=0/1). Does no conversion at all.
Some nice features worth mentioning:
For certain programs, the emulators returns a false DOS version number of 7 and a false Windows version number of 4 because they refuse to use long file names otherwise (currently, 4DOS and ARJ).
The data base looks just like the DESCRIPT.ION files of 4DOS, the file name was only changed to avoid confusion.
The data base is hidden from the directory list if the client program uses long file name functions to read the directory.
The ordinary "remove directory", "delete file" and "rename file" functions are redirected to their long file name counterparts so that no redundant long file name entry remains when a LFN-unaware program deletes or renames files or directories using their short file name.
Several other DOS functions, such as "make directory", "change directory", "create file", "open file", "get/set file attributes" and "extended open file" are also redirected so that several LFN-unaware programs will be able to use long file names without any modification.
The search handles used by a process are automatically closed when the process exits.
The end-of-line mark in the data base can be any combination of carriage returns and line feeds.
The following features still have to be implemented:
Support for 64-bit date stamps in "find first matching file" and "find next matching file".
A true "convert date stamps" function (AX=71A7h and BL=0/1). Until this is finished, running the program under Windows 95/98 will mess up date stamps in the directory list and also when files are touched.
Some features that do not follow the behavior of Windows 95/98 exactly and are unlikely to change (they would be either hard or useless to change):
"Flush buffers and cache" flushes buffers for all drives, can only flush SmartDrive, Norton Cache or compatible cache programs and cannot remount DriveSpace volumes (AX=710Dh and CX=2).
"Get/set file attributes" can't get compressed file size (AX=7143h and BL=2).
"Get current directory" always returns a full long form path.
"Get true file name" always returns a full long form absolute file name, actually, it is done by the "get long file name" function.
None of the file name conversion routines return any error code, even if only a drive letter or a bad path is given or the drive letter is invalid.
The functions "get file info" (AX=71A6h), "server create or open file" (AX=71A9h) and "create/terminate/query SUBST" (AX=71AAh and BH=0-2) are not implemented at all.
Some problems that are solved when VFAT support is enabled:
The data base is easy to tamper, there are no checksums in it, you can even create multiple files with the same long file name.
Short file names may not contain spaces because the first space on a line of the data base separates the short and long file names.
The line feed inserted into the data base is always CR/LF, independently from the end-of-line mark actually used.
Some problems that will be solved when VFAT support is finished:
"Get/set file attributes" can't get or set Windows 95/98-specific file date stamps (AX=7143h and BL=3-8).
"Find first matching file" and "find next matching file" can only return DOS-style file date stamps and know nothing about Unicode either.
A problem which is probably impossible to overcome is that the original DOS COMMAND.COM and external DOS commands cannot handle long file names so you won't be able to pass long file names as parameters to them. By the way, this is the reason why Caldera included a modified OpenDOS COMMAND.COM along with their long file name support program: to smarten up, at least, the internal DOS commands. A good solution is using 4DOS or booting DOS 7, which comes with Windows 95/98, because their internal DOS commands are also capable of using long file names, when available.
However, with this program and a DOS-based LFN-aware file manager, you'll be able to copy, rename, delete files and directories with long names under plain DOS. You may even backup and restore your entire Windows 95/98 partition, file by file, easily. Just, please, be patient until VFAT support is finished.
The following programs have been tested and seem to work fine, without any changes, in file access mode:
4DOS 7.01
ARJ 2.71
Info-ZIP 2.2 and 2.3, 32-bit DOS version
OpenDOS 7.01 COMMAND.COM
PKUNZIP 2.04g
The Star Commander 0.82
The Volkov Commander 4.99 alphas
The following programs have been tested but they have to be forced to use Windows 95/98 long file name functions even under plain DOS:
4DOS 6.0x: Specifying "Win95LFN=Yes" in 4DOS.INI doesn't help because "dir", which is correctly aliased to "dir *", only lists files without extension, as if 4DOS were running under plain DOS! Note: This bug has been fixed in 4DOS 7.0.
ARJ 2.60: It has to be fooled to be running under DOS 7.0 and Windows 4.0, otherwise it won't use long file names at all. Note: This bug has been fixed in ARJ 2.61.
The following programs have severe problems:
HVSC_2 for Windows 95/98 (High Voltage SID Collection 1.6 –> 2.0 update): It keeps opening several hundred directory search records without closing any of them. This is a bug in DJGPP: although opendir() and readdir() both close the LFN search handle automatically when there are no more directory entries to read, closedir() never does.
I haven't tested the programs above extensively, please, tell me if you find some problems. Try this program with other LFN-aware programs, too, and tell me about incompatibilities.
0.01 beta:
First release.
0.02 beta:
Introducing the "rename" function, the ordinary DOS "rename" function is redirected to this function.
Introducing the "volume info" function.
Short file names are recognized in a smart way and no long file name entry is created for them.
No more strange effects when trying to read the root directory of a drive under VC 4.99 alphas.
Improved compatibility with VC 4.99 alphas, 4DOS 6.01 and ARJ 2.60.
0.03 beta:
Introducing the comparation of file names against the search file name pattern in "find first matching file" and "find next matching file". Now 4DOS 6.01 does find external programs and ARJ 2.60 doesn't decompress all files in the current directory upon startup.
4DOS is not fooled to be running under Windows 95/98 because it has an option to force the usage of Windows 95/98 long file name functions anyway.
0.10 beta:
First public release.
4DOS is fooled again to be running under Windows 95/98, otherwise "dir", that is, "dir *" will only list files without extension, as if 4DOS were running under plain DOS.
Now "delete file" accepts wildcards and search attributes.
The maximum number of search records available at a time has been raised from 4 to 16.
Several bugs, related to problems with the High Voltage SID Collection 1.6 –> 2.0 update program, have been fixed.
If the client program uses long file name functions to read the directory then the entry of the data base (the short file name is "longname.dat") will be hidden.
0.11 beta:
Introducing the redirection of several other DOS functions, such as "make directory", "change directory", "create file", "open file", "get/set file attributes" and "extended open file".
Several small bugfixes.
0.12 beta:
Introducing a standalone program, LFNDIR, that contains physical disk access routines and can read Windows 95/98-style long file names off the disk.
The tilde and number are now appended to short file names by default because leaving them caused problems with the High Voltage SID Collection.
0.20 beta:
The compatibility with the Windows 95/98 alias generation algorithm has been improved: only those aliases get a tilde and a number, whose long file name counterpart is too long and/or contains invalid characters. The aliases of long file names conforming to the 8.3 format but containing mixed case characters are simply the uppercase form of the long file name.
Fully lowercase long file names can now be created.
Now there are no problems if you only change the case of characters while renaming a file.
You're not allowed to create two files whose names are basically the same because only the case of some of the characters are different.
File names that conform to the 8.3 format but whose name and extension part is in different case are now recognized as long file names.
Only the first three characters of the extension is copied from the long file name to its short equivalent.
The check for the validity of long file names is more thorough in LFNDIR.
LFNDIR displays long file names of a length of a multiple of 13 correctly.
0.21 beta:
LFNDOS runs under Windows 95/98 and DOS 7.x, as well.
When browsing through the directory of Novell Netware drives, LFNDOS also returns entries having the Shareable attribute set.
In the LFNDOS source, you can also change the file attribute of LONGNAME.DAT files created by the program. Switching the system and hidden attributes off helps with getting rid of "unmovable files" in disk defragmenter programs.
LFNDIR shows no volume labels and deleted files anymore, it displays the short name of files in lowercase and that of directories in uppercase and it displays file names starting with an E5h character correctly.
0.22 beta:
Files with exactly nine characters in the name part of their file name are now handled correctly.
When a client program reads through the directory using FindFirst and FindNext, LFNDOS checks for the existence of LONGNAME.DAT only once and if if not present, no checks are done during the remainder of the directory.
0.23 beta:
Long file names starting with a space are now handled correctly.
Long file names that contain lowercase characters only and conform to the DOS 8.3 file naming convention are not converted to full uppercase anymore.
The "get true/short/long name of file" functions support the SUBST expansion flag.
Introducing the "generate short alias" function.
Introducing support for the alias hint in the "create or open file" function.
A problem with the "LONGNAME.DAT exists" flag, introduced in 0.22 beta, that prevented Info-ZIP from archiving files with long names, has been fixed.
LFNDIR prints out no startup message anymore, only the list of files.
A new compilation directive in LFNDIR allows you to make it list file names in the format of LONGNAME.DAT files.
0.24 beta:
File accesses in the root directory of drives are now handled correctly.
Ctrl-Break presses are not swallowed when the resident core is active, the original interrupt handler is signalled upon exit from the core.
0.25 beta:
Renamed the program to "Star LFN" so that its name doesn't conflict with Chris Jones' LFNDOS anymore.
Uninstallation is now done by specifying the option '/U'.
No LFN entries are created anymore for file names that belong to a standard device.
You get no more "File not found" error when opening standard devices because they are assumed to "exist" in any directory, just like under plain DOS.
0.26 beta:
Instead of a fixed list of devices, the chain of actually installed devices is walked through when checking file names. As a result, the last two fixes of the previous release now apply to all actually installed devices rather than standard devices only.
LFNDIR no more compares the first non-space character of the short and long file names, that was an extra check to make sure the two file names belong together.
0.27 beta:
LFNDIR considers all LFN entries with their first byte having the 7th bit set as deleted, rather than only entries with their first byte being E5h.
0.30 beta (2002-03-10):
Introducing experimental read-only VFAT support.
When started without any command line parameter, the program displays usage information rather that installing itself at once.
Installation is now done by specifying the option '/I'.
Replaced a huge amount of magic numbers with named constants in the source.
0.31 beta (2002-09-08):
Moved the history into the main documentation.
Fixed the lockup that occurred in VFAT mode when copying a directory structure with long file names (the long file names are still not written onto the disk though so you will get an error message anyway).
0.32 beta (2004-01-31):
Updated the list about other similar programs in the documentation.
Thanks go to the following people:
Malcom Dew-Jones for his LFNUTILS package
Chris Jones for discussion and for his LFNDOS
Duncan J. Murdoch for general help with LFN's and for his LFNSORT
Les Williams for discussion of LFN's on CD-ROM's
Fucks go to PC Magazine, the copyright owner of Rick Knoblaugh's LFNDir, for having published the source along with a ridiculous license that only allows others to make personal use of the source but distribute no derivative works at all! This program contains nothing at all from their lame intellectual property!
This program needs DOS 4.0 or later
The program uses several features, part of which are undocumented, that are available only in DOS 4.0 and newer versions. You cannot use it with older DOS versions.
Out of memory
The program could not allocate memory for its own purposes. Try freeing up memory by uninstalling some resident programs.
Star LFN cannot be uninstalled – you've installed some programs after it.
One or more programs, installed afterwards, have hooked onto the same interrupts, therefore the program can't uninstall itself. Uninstall those other programs in a reverse order of their installation and try again.
The source of this program is public domain and provided here "as is" – I don't feel like commenting it more but if you have problems then feel free to ask me. If you derive your own program from the source or put a part of the source into your own program, please, give me a credit and send a copy to me.
If you're interested in some similarly useful utilities you can contact me at sta.ANTI@SPAM.c64.org or visit my homepage at http://sta.c64.org.
Joe Forster/STA
31st January, 2004
(This page best viewed with any browser)