long vs short filenames

[Thai Guy]

Hello! I've just arrived and may not have selected the proper forum for my post. If it would be better located elsewhere, please move it and let me know.

My concern is that I am puzzled by how FoxPro 2.6 is unable to use long filenames and instead uses something like this: "palacc~1" rather than the full wording, i.e. "palaccount" . Could someone provide an explanation for this behavior? Thx in advance. THAI Guy in Thailand

 

[Joe Crescenzi]

I just love a good thought experiment, and I said, my main intention was to clarify that FP was not the source of the shortened names, because the operating system manages them, and that the OP should be aware that there are scenarios where the short name can change.

I ran into this type of issue over 25 years ago with a similar scenario where I let users upload attachments. I kept the filenames in a table for reference later.

I came to realize they often not only had short names in common, but even long ones that were uploaded hours, days, months and even years in the future, so the newer files stepped on the old ones, even when I copied them to a neutral folder named the number of the month, within another folder for the year. This kept things neat, but they still had names overlapping, so I saved them all with my own unique filename formula, then saved the new name with the original path and filename in a table.

Now, when they upload a file, it's never touched, but they can access a copy of it. If they upload a different file, even with the exact name, the new file will not overwrite the old one. So they can even save a file named "DailyRep.PDF" every single day and have hundreds of them in the same folder (but with new names) and they'll all be exactly what they were when they uploaded them.