Filename mangling
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The process of filename mangling, in
filesystem appears in a form incompatible with the operating system accessing it. Such mangling occurs, for example, on computer networks when a Windows machine attempts to access a file on a Unix
server and that file has a filename which includes characters not valid in Windows.
FAT Derivative Filesystem
Legacy support under VFAT
A common example of name mangling occurs on
8.3
format (i.e.: an eight-letter filename, a dot and a three-letter extension, such as autoexec.bat
), files with LFNs get stored on disk in 8.3 format (longfilename.txt
becoming longfi~1.txt
), with the long file name stored elsewhere on the disk.
Normally[Win16 games on 64-bit Windows.
Unix Filesystems
]Unix file names can contain
Samba on Unix, use different[clarification needed] mangling systems to map long filenames to DOS-compatible filenames (although Samba administrators can configure this behavior in the config file).[1]
Mac OS
macOS's Finder displays instances of ":" in file and directory names with a "/". This is because the classic Mac OS used the ":" character internally as a path separator. Listing these files or directories using a terminal emulator displays a ":" rather than the "/" character, though.
References
- ^ Eckstein, Robert; David Collier-Brown; Peter Kelly (November 1999). "5.4 Name Mangling and Case". Using Samba (1st ed.). O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Retrieved 2009-10-23.