Posted by Thomas Jollans on 10/03/06 21:33

On Sat, 30 Sep 2006 18:38:37 +0100, patrick j
<patrick@jamesnews.orangehome.co.uk> let this slip:

> Hi
>
> I'm wondering if there is a limit on the number of characters in a
> filename for use in a web-site?
>
> I used to do web-site creation on an amateur basis using the classic
> Mac OS and on that there was a limit of the number of characters in the
> filename so the issue never arose.
>
> However now I'm using OS X I have found myself creating quite long
> filenames.
>
> Should I be concerned about this?

As already pointed out, files are irrelevant to the WWW, they are merely a
possibility to organize data which may or may not be used on the server
and could by coincidence be used to map URIs to data. (I avoided the term
UR*L* as it is not necessarily given that the data has a location that is
concievable from the URI, which may or may not actually uniformly identify
the data, now I come to think of it.

Back to the question:
YES, it is a problem, as URIs should in most cases be easy to remember or
at least easy to type, not to mention permament.

NO, as *NIX (what runs most of the web) systems all, in theory, allow
infinitely long file names, which ispired Microsoft's Windows to allow
long(ish?) file names as well - which should collectively cover 99.99% of
the web. most of the rest probably has an 8.3 file name restriction, but
you'd know due to the careless violation of the rule you'd been guilty of.

--
Thomas Jollans alias free-zombie

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