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For hysterical raisins

peterchen4-Dec-14 21:39

4-Dec-14 21:39

On FAT, the directory entry only holds the 8.3 name, which truncates the extension to 3 characters.

Retriving the full name can be quite costly (think fat via network)

So the options were:

stick to 8.3 file names on FAT. Ask people funny questions when copying from NTFS to FAT
DOS tools can not operate on your beautiful files
slow down dir *.xls by orders of magnitude
dir *.xls works different on C: than on D: (if you limit the "weird" behavior to FAT)
A three-letter filter also includes N>3-letter elements
A myriad of other solutions that in hindsight would have been much better anyway and are oh so trivial to implement on todays machines (remember, Windows 95)

(I could come up with a few...)

I'm not saying Microsoft made the best choice. But I am saying we'd have the same complaints for any other option chosen.

Note that other commands such as del "xyz" do not include them.

ORDER BY what user wants

Re: Dear Microsoft...

SoMad4-Dec-14 5:05

4-Dec-14 5:05

del *.xlsx
dir *.xls

Problem solved $Shucks | :-\$

Soren Madsen

"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Nagy Vilmos4-Dec-14 5:16

4-Dec-14 5:16

Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Re: Dear Microsoft...

User 84204-Dec-14 5:06

4-Dec-14 5:06

I think its a limitation of the dir command only resolving 3 character extensions.

Pretty sure it does the same on htm v. html. Unsure | :~

Unsure | :~

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 5:23

4-Dec-14 5:23

I suspect it's looking at both the long and short names, rather than ignoring short names for files with long names.

In pseudo-SQLese:

WHERE shortname LIKE '%.xls' OR longname LIKE '%.xls'

rather than something like

WHERE IFNULL(longname , shortname) LIKE '%.xls'

Re: Dear Microsoft...

newton.saber4-Dec-14 5:46

4-Dec-14 5:46

Oh, didn't know if you'd see my explanation of Dir /X (http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4956809/Re-Dear-Microsoft-DIR-X-short-names.aspx[^] ) unless I reply directly to you.
Just thought it was interesting.

Re: Dear Microsoft... DIR / X (short names)

newton.saber4-Dec-14 5:38

4-Dec-14 5:38

Dir /X at least shows you why
I have three files in this test directory:

test.htm
test2.html
test3.htmasdflkjasdgf

If you do a dir /X (show short names of files) it lists the short names and you can see that the extension only uses first 3.

C:\Users\ns\test>dir *.htm /X
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 509B-CBCC

 Directory of C:\Users\ns\test

12/04/2014  11:31 AM                 9              test.htm
12/04/2014  11:32 AM                11 TEST2~1.HTM  test2.html
12/04/2014  11:32 AM                11 TEST3~1.HTM  test3.htmasdflkjasdgf
               3 File(s)             31 bytes

However, I think it is stupid and annoying also.

ls *.htm

works perfectly.

Re: Dear Microsoft... DIR / X (short names)

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 6:03

4-Dec-14 6:03

Yes, or even dir /-N

Re: Dear Microsoft...

KarstenK4-Dec-14 5:14

4-Dec-14 5:14

it is a "feature" so you find all your Excel files Blush | :O

Blush | :O

Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 5:24

4-Dec-14 5:24

But I can say dir *.xls* to do that when, and only when, I want to.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Slacker0074-Dec-14 5:28

4-Dec-14 5:28

How do you know what you want to see? Only Microsoft knows what you want. Duh.

Big Grin | :-D

Big Grin | :-D

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 5:31

4-Dec-14 5:31

When I want to see what Microsoft thinks I want to see I use Bing Videos. Unsure | :~

Unsure | :~

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Slacker0074-Dec-14 5:32

4-Dec-14 5:32

Laugh | :laugh:

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Jeremy Falcon4-Dec-14 5:50

4-Dec-14 5:50

That's odd. It doesn't do that for me on Win 8.1.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\jeremy.falcon>cd C:\windows
C:\Windows>dir *.lo
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of C:\Windows

File Not Found

C:\Windows>dir *.log
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of C:\Windows

03/17/2014  09:02 PM             2,664 DtcInstall.log
11/18/2014  09:03 AM           613,588 PFRO.log
11/18/2014  09:31 AM             3,405 setupact.log
09/24/2014  08:29 AM                 0 setuperr.log
09/29/2013  10:20 PM             5,446 vmgcoinstall.log
12/03/2014  08:24 PM         1,947,077 WindowsUpdate.log
               6 File(s)      2,572,180 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  386,710,196,224 bytes free

C:\Windows>

Jeremy Falcon

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 6:06

4-Dec-14 6:06

Create a file with an extension like logger, or login, or something and try it. (I don't have 8.x handy.)

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Jeremy Falcon4-Dec-14 6:15

4-Dec-14 6:15

Well that's messed up. Apparently 3 is the magic number for extensions to cause the screw up. Check this out...

c:\>dir *.*
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of c:\

11/25/2014  02:35 PM    <DIR>          Code
12/04/2014  11:09 AM                 0 cp.logger
08/22/2013  09:22 AM    <DIR>          PerfLogs
11/18/2014  09:48 AM    <DIR>          Program Files
12/03/2014  09:44 AM    <DIR>          Program Files (x86)
03/18/2014  07:59 AM    <DIR>          Users
11/18/2014  09:59 AM    <DIR>          Windows
               1 File(s)              0 bytes
               6 Dir(s)  386,709,864,448 bytes free

c:\>dir *.lo
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of c:\

File Not Found

c:\>dir *.log
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of c:\

12/04/2014  11:09 AM                 0 cp.logger
               1 File(s)              0 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  386,709,864,448 bytes free

c:\>ren cp.logger cp.lo

c:\>dir *.lo
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 0000-0000

 Directory of c:\

12/04/2014  11:09 AM                 0 cp.lo
               1 File(s)              0 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  386,709,839,872 bytes free

c:\>

Jeremy Falcon

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 6:16

4-Dec-14 6:16

'Xac'ly, pull up a stool.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

tgrt4-Dec-14 6:26

4-Dec-14 6:26

It does the same with htm and html files. I suspect it's only dealing with three significant characters for the extension.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Gary Wheeler4-Dec-14 7:03

4-Dec-14 7:03

Sigh. All of this arises from the FindFirstFile()[^] Windows API function, which matches both long and short filenames, when the underlying file system supports both. This is the case for NTFS, although you can turn short filename generation off.

Software Zen: delete this;

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 7:14

4-Dec-14 7:14

Gary Wheeler wrote:
you can turn short filename generation off

Sounds good. How?

modified 4-Dec-14 13:21pm.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Gary Wheeler4-Dec-14 7:19

4-Dec-14 7:19

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007[^]

Software Zen: delete this;

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 7:22

4-Dec-14 7:22

Yep, just found it, thanks. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Not sure I'll do it, but I'm reading up on it.

Good to see different values can be set per volume.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621566.aspx[^]

modified 4-Dec-14 13:37pm.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

SoMad4-Dec-14 9:59

4-Dec-14 9:59

This is one of the things we did at my previous job when we shipped (surveillance) DVRs. Windows Explorer becomes incredibly slow when you have millions of files on a drive.
I have never seen a problem related to this setting.

Soren Madsen

"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty

Re: Dear Microsoft...

PIEBALDconsult4-Dec-14 10:18

4-Dec-14 10:18

On Win7 the default is 2, so I disabled and stripped short names on my work volume. I'll do the same at home.

Re: Dear Microsoft...

Richard Deeming4-Dec-14 8:12

Richard Deeming

4-Dec-14 8:12

Sounds like a backwards-compatibility issue:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/12/17/6785519.aspx[^]:

But some quirks of the FCB matching algorithm persist into Win32 because they have become idiom.

For example, if your pattern ends in .*, the .* is ignored. Without this rule, the pattern *.* would match only files that contained a dot, which would break probably 90% of all the batch files on the planet, as well as everybody's muscle memory, since everybody running Windows NT 3.1 grew up in a world where *.* meant all files.

As another example, a pattern that ends in a dot doesn't actually match files which end in a dot; it matches files with no extension. And a question mark can match zero characters if it comes immediately before a dot.

There may be other weird Win32 pattern matching quirks, but those are the two that come to mind right away, and they both exist to maintain batch file compatibility with the old 8.3 file pattern matching algorithm.

"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer

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