[Diomed]

It seems that MacOS X is very limited in how many characters a file can be named. When trying to transfer MP3's from my PC to my PowerBook, it cuts off most of the song names halfway, so they aren't even recognized as MP3's (this can be easily remedied by adding .mp3, but that means I can't label songs with the Artist - Song Name).

How have people gotten by this? I hate using ID3 tags, and I don't think the OS should limit you in such a way with file length limits.


Thanks in advance,

Diomed

[starfleetX]

OS X does not have a problem with long file names. In fact, you shouldn't be having problems unless you are transferring files with 300 character names.

What are you using to copy the files? Some poorly-coded Carbon apps (and all Classic apps) keep the 31-char limitation from the OS9 era.

[Diomed]

Hey,

I'm using Transmit to copy files from my PC FTP. If you know of any other program that can transmit files from my PC to my PowerBook and keep thte long file names I would love to know!

Thanks,

Diomed

[benh57]

Want to see a funny OSX bug?

1. Select a large amount of text (for example, a whole email) and copy it into clipboard.
2. Click on a filename in finder so it edits.
3. "Paste" the email into the filename and hit return.

Check out that dialog the Finder gives you

(its a known issue, apple told me..)

-Ben

[jcb9]

Originally posted by benh57:
<STRONG>Want to see a funny OSX bug?

1. Select a large amount of text (for example, a whole email) and copy it into clipboard.
2. Click on a filename in finder so it edits.
3. "Paste" the email into the filename and hit return.

Check out that dialog the Finder gives you

(its a known issue, apple told me..)

-Ben</STRONG>

For me, it just says the name cannot be used because it contains too many characters. I'm not sure why that's a bug...

[benh57]

Originally posted by jcb9:
<STRONG>

For me, it just says the name cannot be used because it contains too many characters. I'm not sure why that's a bug...</STRONG>

Paste in more text. A lot more.



[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: benh57 ]

[Scrod]

Diomed, why not turn on FTP access in Mac OS X, and then type in ftp://yourusername@IPaddresshere in an Explorer window. If you're using anything later than Windows 98 you should be able to simply copy the files into whichever directory you want.

[Millennium]

There are only two limits in OSX filenames: they must be 255 or less characters, and they can't contain a colon or forward-slash.

However, many (though not all) Carbon apps are inheriting the old 32-character limitations of OS9. The reason has to deal with the structures they use for handling files. Transmit is affected by this; it's a known bug although it has not yet been fixed. Office v.X has the same problem.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Millennium:
<STRONG>There are only two limits in OSX filenames: they must be 255 or less characters, and they can't contain a colon or forward-slash.

However, many (though not all) Carbon apps are inheriting the old 32-character limitations of OS9. The reason has to deal with the structures they use for handling files. Transmit is affected by this; it's a known bug although it has not yet been fixed. Office v.X has the same problem.</STRONG>

IE also has the problem. I can't view certain pages if clicked from a link, and Stuffit Expander also has this problem. This is a very serious issue at this point, at least for people like me already used to long naming schemes.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Eug:
<STRONG>
IE also has the problem. I can't view certain pages if clicked from a link, and Stuffit Expander also has this problem. This is a very serious issue at this point, at least for people like me already used to long naming schemes.</STRONG>

Ya this sucks for some people. The thing is Apple has done the work it should the these lazy/stupid 3rd parties developers seem to forget these VERY important things when they carbonize the apps.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
<STRONG>

Ya this sucks for some people. The thing is Apple has done the work it should the these lazy/stupid 3rd parties developers seem to forget these VERY important things when they carbonize the apps.</STRONG>

Here's the thing: for some reason, when Apple introduced HFS+, it decided not to modify the existing structure for accessing files, called an FSSpec. Instead, it created a new type: the FSRef.

FSRef's can do long filenames. However, there are some serious (and, frankly, rather boneheaded) limitations in them. For example, they can't reference a file that has not yet been created, which FSSpec's can (this may not seem like a big deal, until you realize how useful it can be for things like starting to download a file before the user has determined where to save it). There are also a few other compatibility issues, though an FSSpec can be converted to an FSRef and five cersa with a simple function call.

But because of these limitations, developers seem reluctant to adopt these. I think that's the problem.

It's Apple's fault, in the end. They should have either simply modified FSSpec (though this would cause a few minor compatibility issues) or improved FSRef to make it more compatible. But, as with several other aspects of Carbon's API (Sheets, Services, etc.) they seem interested in doing only the bare minimum. If Carbon is to be a major API on OSX, then Apple does have a responsibility to integrate it as well as Cocoa.

[JLL]

Originally posted by Millennium:
<STRONG>There are only two limits in OSX filenames: they must be 255 or less characters, and they can't contain a colon or forward-slash.</STRONG>

Please try and include a slash in a file name! It can be used. List the file name in Terminal and the slash appears as a colon.

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, OS X filenames are still pretty screwed up. There's no sensible reason for any characters to be forbidden, given that filenames and paths are well-known to be remarkably poor GUIDs. (which is why, MacOS used a seperate and hidden file ID number analagous to Unix inodes for years; this was quite useful in conjunction with aliases)

Additionally, there's no sensible reason for filenames to be limited to any length of characters provided that there is still memory present on the system to accomodate them. Fixing the length at 6, 8, 31, or 255 characters is always short-sighted. A more flexible system that only allocated the amount of space necessary per file seems far more sensible.

Regarding mp3s however, ID3 is far superior to ordinary filenames. The problem is that Apple is so behind the times that the Finder does not display it or permit it to be edited! Given that any given track has several (typically at _least_ three) important and discrete types of human-readable metadata used for identification purposes -- the track name, the performing artist name, and the album name -- trying to cram this in sensibly to a flat filename is a losing battle. Particularly when more complex human identification schemes are needed (e.g for remixes, original artists, sets, track numbers, composers, performers, works, etc.)

Even WinXP can display this data directly in the file manager and utilize it, although it's extremely rough. BeOS had this capability for years. OS X seems to have not been designed with actual information organization in mind; it was outdated before it was released.

[nickm]

Well, OS X filenames are still pretty screwed up. There's no sensible reason for any characters to be forbidden, given that filenames and paths are well-known to be remarkably poor GUIDs. (which is why, MacOS used a seperate and hidden file ID number analagous to Unix inodes for years; this was quite useful in conjunction with aliases)

Just because it's a poor idea doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of Unix software out there that relies on it. You simply cannot allow a Unix file to have a slash in it. Similarly for MacOS and colon. Now, you might argue that the directory separating character shouldn't be something as common as a colon or a slash, but I think that would be problematic as well.

All in all, I think MacOS X does a pretty good job on this particular issue.

[m a d r a]

i think the unix core throws a lot of spanners in the works as well. i have several folders with names in gaelic which have accented characters.

if i drag one of these folders into terminal to 'jump' to that path in the CLI, the accented characters get replaced with ???? [four question marks]- so we have the situation that the core of the OS disnae recognise certain characters in filenames whilst the GUI is quite happy to allow them. this smacks a bit of the kind of windoze bolted on top of DOS confusion we used to scorn PC users for suffering

[cpt kangarooski]

if you absolutely, positively had to have a path seperator, it should be a special unicode control character that is a completely new invention, and not already in use by any language.

but i'm not convinced that its even necessarily essential. (hell, there are good arguments against the concept of files) additionally, Unix should not be driving OS X's UI. If programmers have to put in some late hours rigging up patches to the Unix layer to get it to work with the underlying system, that's a lot better than deciding arbitrarily that commonly used alphanumeric characters simply need not be used.

[rantweasel]

Originally posted by m a d r a:
<STRONG>i think the unix core throws a lot of spanners in the works as well. i have several folders with names in gaelic which have accented characters.

if i drag one of these folders into terminal to 'jump' to that path in the CLI, the accented characters get replaced with ???? [four question marks]- so we have the situation that the core of the OS disnae recognise certain characters in filenames whilst the GUI is quite happy to allow them. this smacks a bit of the kind of windoze bolted on top of DOS confusion we used to scorn PC users for suffering</STRONG>

That's funny, because I had all kinds of accented-name mp3s, and the terminal was able to display them fine... Maybe it's the drag & drop?

[Wevah]

ID3 tags rock...http://www.id3.org/

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: Wevah ]