MPE/iX File Naming Conventions

MPE/iX has only one file system but it supports two naming conventions. In MPE/iX, files can be named using the traditional MPE conventions or according to the new expanded HFS syntax. Some of the files can be named using either naming convention.

In the HFS syntax, a file name can be up to 255 characters. The valid characters are uppercase (A-Z) and lowercase letters (a-z), integers (0-9), the dot (.), the underscore (_), and the hyphen (-); the first character cannot be a hyphen. File names are case sensitive. The pathname limit is 1023 characters.

	NOTE: Although the file name components can be up to 255 characters, other system limits restrict file name length. The command interpreter limits the number of characters that you can type in a command to 511 characters. Names of files directly under root or directly under a group or account are limited to 16 characters. Refer to Tables 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3 in Chapter 2 for additional naming restrictions.

A pathname identifies a file. It has a beginning slash (/), followed by the names of directories separated by slashes that lead to the file location. For example, the pathname for a file called USERINFO in the PUB group of the SYS account would be /SYS/PUB/USERINFO.

Table 7-1 shows sample file names and MPE/iX's interpretation of the names. In the table, ./ refers to the current working directory using the default MPE-Escaped syntax.

To refer to files named using HFS syntax, you need to preface the name with a dot (.) or a slash (/). For example, to refer to the file prog.src in your current working directory, you need to refer to it as ./prog.src. The name /env_stats refers to a file called env_stats in the root directory.