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Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!news.bconnex.net!news2.insinc.net!thinkage.on.ca!atbowler From: atbowler@thinkage.on.ca (Alan Bowler) Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things Message-ID: <E0x87I.8q4@thinkage.on.ca> Sender: news@thinkage.on.ca Organization: Thinkage Ltd. References: <kbibb.847601696@shellx> <1996111206190712643@[192.159.32.2]> <56ai85$iju@sue.cc.uregina.ca> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 16:52:29 GMT Lines: 23 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26450 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1518 alt.folklore.computers:124646 In article <56ai85$iju@sue.cc.uregina.ca> bayko@BOREALIS.CS.UREGINA.CA (John Bayko) writes: >In article <1996111206190712643@[192.159.32.2]>, > Shawn Barnhart <swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com> wrote: >> >>I thought I read someplace that one of the original incarnations of Unix >>could only support two character file names. Hence many of the basic >>system commands (ls, mv, cp, rm, cd, and so forth) are only two >>characters. > > Except that they were all kept in /bin, which is a three >character name. > No serious operating system would ever place such a restrictive >limit on file names. These days when most command names are just the names of files in some directory we have lost the distinction between command names and file names. It was not always so. In many of the older systems you have a set of commands known to the command interpreter. One of the commands is likely "run <filename>" or something like that, so there is a clear distinction between system commands and user programs. The length of these command names was/is often limited so it will fit in a table. On Gcos8 timesharing it is 4 characters. On MarkIII (the system that underlies the Genie service), it is three characters.