FW: Special Filenames AUX, CON, etc.

[Larry Hall]

Hm, this is interesting.  I can see there was actually a little confusion
about my previous statement.  The MS doc claims that "\\?\" syntax can be
used on NT in addition to, optionally, UNC to override path length 
limitations.  The doc reads:

Windows NT: You can use paths longer than MAX_PATH characters by calling the wide (W) version of CreateFile and prepending “\\?\” to the path. The “\\?\” tells the function to turn off path parsing. This lets you use paths that are nearly 32,000 Unicode characters long. You must use fully-qualified paths with this technique. This also works with UNC names. The “\\?\” is ignored as part of the path. For example, “\\?\C:\myworld\private” is seen as “C:\myworld\private”, and “\\?\UNC\tom_1\hotstuff\coolapps” is seen as “\\tom_1\hotstuff\coolapps”. 

This is a little different issue than what we were discussing and indicates
that this particular syntax and functionality is NT specific.  However, the
"\\?\" syntax is NOT the same as UNC syntax, as clarified by the above doc.
The interesting thing to me is that Mikey found that UNC paths did not 
seem to allow him to access the special case file names (nul in this case) on 
win95b as others have implied.  Have others tried this?  Does this not work
on 95?  I've heard reports that it works somewhere.  Was that just on NT?

Larry Hall                              lhall@rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (781) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                          (781) 239-1655 - FAX
Wellesley, MA  02181                    http://www.rfk.com



At 11:21 PM 4/11/98 GMT, Mikey wrote:
>win95b
>nope looks like current info to me ;^(
>
>W95_C:\>echo me > \\.\c:\nul
>File creation error
>
>W95_C:\>
>
>On Sat, 11 Apr 1998 15:31:34 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>According to the MS docs, the "\\?\" syntax is an NT thing only.  Perhaps 
>>this is now dated information.  I don't know.  I've heard others claiming
>>that just using UNC is enough to cure this problem.  If that's true, I 
>>think its better to use this capability, since it is more likely to work
>>for 95 as well.
>>
>>Larry Hall                              lhall@rfk.com
>>RFK Partners, Inc.                      (781) 239-1053
>>8 Grove Street                          (781) 239-1655 - FAX
>>Wellesley, MA  02181                    http://www.rfk.com
>>
>>
>>At 11:25 AM 4/11/98 +0400, Sergey Okhapkin wrote:
>>>
>>>Any ideas? It seems reasonable to me...
>>>
>>>----------
>>>From: 	Spencer Low
>>>Sent: 	ÓÕÂÂÏÔÁ, 11 ÁÐÒÅÌÑ 1998 Ç. 6:30
>>>To: 	sos@prospect.com.ru
>>>Subject: 	Special Filenames AUX, CON, etc.
>>>
>>>I saw some messages on the gnu-win32 mailing list about how Windows NT
>>>doesn't have the capability to create/open files with special names (or
>>>containing special names) like AUX. I was really surprised to see that
>>>gnu-win32 doesn't properly open files with these funny names when the fix is
>>>quite easy.
>>>
>>>To create/open a file with a special name, reference it like:
>>>
>>>\\?\C:\MyDirectory\aux
>>>
>>>instead of
>>>
>>>C:\MyDirectory\aux
>>>
>>>I tried this with the gnu-win32 tools and I was able to manipulate files
>>>with special names with no problems.
>>>
>>>[The original purpose of the \\?\{FullPath} syntax seems to be a mechanism
>>>to get NT to recognize a full path longer than 255 characters]
>>>
>>>I'm not subscribed to the mailing list and I don't have time to submit a
>>>patch, but I thought you may be able to use this info to patch gnu-win32 if
>>>you have the time and energy.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>Spencer [please feel free to forward this along]
>>>--
>>>Spencer Low <spencer@lowtek.com>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
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>(jeffdbREMOVETHIS@netzone.com)
>delete REMOVETHIS from the above to reply
>         Mikey
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