5-6 Dell PowerVault 720N, 740N, and 760N System Administrator and Command Reference Guide
that has access from a CIFS client, the filer creates and maintains two names: the
original long name and an additional short name in 8.3 format.
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The filer generates an 8.3 file name as follows:
1. It truncates the file name to six characters.
2. It appends a tilde (~) and a number or letter to the name. If it runs out of letters
and numbers because there are too many similar names, it creates a unique file
name that bears no relation to the original file name.
3. It truncates the file name extension to three characters.
NOTE: The number or letter appended to the short name ensures that the file
name is unique. It is not for showing the order of file creation.
For example, if an NFS client creates a file named specifications.html, the short name
created by the filer is specif~0.htm. If this short name already exists, the filer uses a
different number at the end of the file name. For example, if the UNIX client creates
another file named specifications_new.html, the short version of
specifications_new.html is specif~1.htm.
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The short names appear on clients that support only the 8.3 format. The short names
are not visible to NFS clients. On Windows 9x and Windows NT clients, you can
choose to display the short name or the long name by using File Properties.
NOTE: Under some circumstances, an application running on a client that uses names
in 8.3 format can lose the files original long-format name. This can occur as a con-
sequence of the way an application saves a file that it has edited. Some applications
rename the original file, then save the edited file as if it were newly created. The filer
thus receives instructions to delete the original file and create a new one. When the
client supports only 8.3 names, this new name no longer has an equivalent in long
format.
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The characters that you can use in file names depend on the client operating systems.
Because restrictions on legal characters vary from one operating system to another,
refer to the documentation for your clients operating system for more information
about prohibited characters.
When you name a file to be shared by users on different operating systems, it helps
to use only characters that are common to both. For example, if you use UNIX to cre-
ate a file and use a colon (:) as its file name, an MS-DOS user sees the name
displayed as ~0 because the colon is an illegal character in an MS-DOS file name.