HP 3000 Manuals

MPE/iX Developer's Kit Reference Manual Volume I

Naming File System Objects 

The syntax that the operating system uses to resolve an object name that
you specify (either a file or directory) to an actual system object
depends upon the interface you are using to access or name the object.  A
name syntax is a set of rules that defines the structure of valid names
for that syntax.

The hierarchical file system (HFS) name syntax used by MPE/iX conforms to
object name syntax rules defined by the POSIX.1 standard.  (A second name
syntax, MPE name syntax, is supported through the MPE/iX Command
Interpreter and through system intrinsics.)  The POSIX/iX library and the
MPE/iX Shell and Utilities interpret object names using only the HFS name
syntax when resolving an object name to a system object.  You can
successfully name any file or directory on your system using HFS name
syntax.

The following rules apply when naming files and hierarchical directories
using MPE/iX HFS name syntax:

   *   File and hierarchical directory names can contain alphanumeric
       characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) as well as the dot (.), underscore (_),
       and dash (-) characters.
   *   File and hierarchical directory names cannot begin with a dash (-)
       character.
   *   File and hierarchical directory names can be up to 255 characters
       in length; however, certain restrictions apply to file and
       hierarchical directory names when they are located directly
       beneath either the root directory or MPE/iX groups.  For more
       information about name restrictions, refer to the sections on
       files and directories.

For more information about HFS syntax and MPE syntax, refer to New 
Features of MPE/iX: Using the Hierarchical File System (32650-90351).

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation