Re: Can the value of NAME_MAX be changed?

From: Marc Rochkind (rochkind_at_basepath.com)
Date: 06/26/03 

Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 08:23:52 -0600

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 18:29:30 +0530, Me <somebudy@despammed.com> wrote:

[snip]

>
> On my system in KDE when I try to rename a file I have the following
> problem.
> In the text box if the number of characters exceed a certain value
> (NAME_MAX?) I
> am automatically logged off.
> Do you face such a problem?
>
> Try and put 2 dashes followed by one space as a sig separator, like this
> "-- "
> (without quotes) 8-)
>
> Thanks a lot.
>
>

This is a bug in KDE or whatever, having nothing to do with NAME_MAX or any
other part of the UNIX kernel.

And, should you get that far, NAME_MAX is only the length of a component of
the path. It's not a limit on the whole path, which is what users are
normally concerned with. That's a different constant (if the system even
has a limit), and it's similarly read-only: PATH_MAX. It may not be
defined, as having a limit isn't a requirement.

Generally, software has to be designed to:

1. Handle all paths, no matter the length, up to a reasonable number (e.g.,
4K). But 4K paths occur only when the program is generating the path. Users
never type or paste paths that long, although in theory they could.

2. Give an error message or whatever if the path is too long. Aborting
(which is what's hapenning here, from your description) is never
acceptable.

--Marc

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