Question:

I have been looking to using long file names in GHS. Since we create a lot of GHS files we really have to organize them properly. We currently use a numbering system with 8 character file names. We need to increase this. I thought GHS supported long file name.
It seems that PM and GHS can read long file names and long path names. But PM cannot write long file names (it can write to directories/pathname with long names, but the long file name is truncated to 8). This means we cannot use long file names for model files because PM cannot save them. Can you offer any assistance.

GHS seems to allow long file names but only when a long path name is used - if no long directory name is used GHS truncates the file name to 8 characters.

Answer:

In general, GHS does support long file names. In some places they are displayed as their short file name equivalents (e.g. LONGFI~1.GF instead of LONGFILENAME.GF), but they should still work the same.

However, we still have some DOS programs (such as PM, MC, SE, and CG) that act as helper programs for GHS. There is no way these helper programs - used by themselves - can create new files with long file names. In fact, one of the reasons GHS currently uses internally short name equivalents is to be compatible with these helper programs.

If a file with a long file name already exists, when PM saves using the short name equivalent, the long file name will be preserved. So open up the file in GHS using the long file name (perhaps from a GHS menu), ENTER PM, make any changes, and write the short file name equivalent. But what if the file is new, and doesn't exist yet? Then you'll need to create the file first in GHS, say by copying any file to the long file name using the GHS COPY command (e.g. "COPY C:\GHS\FV.GF LONGFILENAME.GF"), then ENTER PM, make the parts, and write the short file name equivalent (e.g. "WRITE LONGFI~1.GF").

I realize that this is not ideal, but I hope that it will work for you until Windows PM is ready.

I presume what's happening is that PM is using the 8-character short file name equivalent (which includes a "~" character), not just truncating to 8 characters.

For example, using VERYLONGFILENAME.GF and using VERYLONGDIRNAME\VERYLONGFILENAME.GF behaves pretty much the same. In each case, the short file name is displayed and passed to PM, but the correct file is being used. There should be no problem creating new long file names using the COPY, SAVE, and WRITE commands. Note that any long file names that include spaces should be enclosed in quotes (supported in version 8.12A).