Re: MSDOS filenames

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Jim Freeman writes ("Re: MSDOS filenames"):
...
> Would it be more worthwhile to use something like mkisofs uses to
> create the TRANS.TBL files when making a DOS-readable iso9660 CD?
> Pre-existing standard, algorithms, and code - the problem has already
> been solved before?
> 
> I probably don't understand the problem, but insist on yapping anyway :) .

You've missed the point.  Suppose we have packages
  ncurses-base
  ncurses-term
  ncurses-dev
then we need to make the names into 8.3, such as
  ncurbase.deb
  ncurterm.deb
  ncursdev.deb
&c., so that people can put them on MSDOS format floppies without
renaming them.  dpkg and dselect don't care about the filenames, so
long as they end in .deb.

You seem just to be talking about a scheme for encoding the full
filenames in a separate file; that's not what's required.

Ian.