Monday, May 9, 2011

DSC_0094.JPG

- Yes, it is correct!

Capitals, 8 characters for a name and 3 characters for an extension. This format is used on your photo camera too, I believe.
Do you have any clue why it is so?
First of all. Do we want something else like 'MySuperPhotoShot_001.jpg'? Right now I don't have any idea when it could be needed/useful. Possibly you have a good one.
Let's go back to our question: why is the old DOS8.3 format of the file names used on the memory cards?
Here it comes. We have a flash memory as MMC, SD card or something of that sort. The FAT32 file system is a standard 'de facto' on the memory cards. Originally FAT file systems were designed to support the short file names known also as 8.3 filename. The file allocation table on FAT32 file system provides an information where the files are located on a disk. Each record of a file allocation table keeps a 8.3 filename and the file attributes, its size is 32 bits. Later in 1994 Microsoft introduced the long file name format in Windows NT 3.5. It is done in such a way that the file system with a new file name format could be easily read by a device that only understands DOS8.3 standard (backwards compatibility). Hm, logical. But don't forget the photo camera (on calendar the year is 2011) makes files in DOS8.3 format.
The new (? from 1994) long file name format is patented. Bingo! The software on a photo camera is not a Windows platform and therefore it could be a problem to use LFN format there.

End of story. Bye, bye. (c) Shrek.

More details about the file name format:
File Allocation Table  (especially chapter about a Microsoft patent).

1 comment:

  1. I've got questions:
    - what about video blog posts by the author? (the present file format story would perfectly fit the format)
    - how many times have you seen Shrek?
    - how are you doing, man?

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