mkmanifest - Man Page

This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete.  See the end of this man page for details.

The mkmanifest command is used to create a shell script (packing list) to restore Unix filenames. Its syntax is:

mkmanifest [ files ]

Mkmanifest creates a shell script that aids in the restoration of Unix filenames that got clobbered by the MS-DOS filename restrictions. MS-DOS filenames are restricted to 8 character names, 3 character extensions, upper case only, no device names, and no illegal characters.

The mkmanifest program is compatible with the methods used in pcomm, arc, and mtools to change perfectly good Unix filenames to fit the MS-DOS restrictions. This command is only useful if the target system which will read the diskette cannot handle VFAT long names.

You want to copy the following Unix files to a MS-DOS diskette (using the mcopy command).

  very_long_name
  2.many.dots
  illegal:
  good.c
  prn.dev
  Capital

ASCII converts the names to:

  very_lon
  2xmany.dot
  illegalx
  good.c
  xprn.dev
  capital

The command:

mkmanifest very_long_name 2.many.dots illegal: good.c prn.dev Capital >manifest

 would produce the following:

  mv very_lon very_long_name
  mv 2xmany.dot 2.many.dots
  mv illegalx illegal:
  mv xprn.dev prn.dev
  mv capital Capital

Notice that "good.c" did not require any conversion, so it did not appear in the output.

Suppose I've copied these files from the diskette to another Unix system, and I now want the files back to their original names.  If the file "manifest" (the output captured above) was sent along with those files, it could be used to convert the filenames.

The short names generated by mkmanifest follow the old convention (from mtools-2.0.7) and not the one from Windows 95 and mtools-3.0.

Mtools' texinfo doc

This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this translation process.  Indeed, these items have no appropriate representation in the manpage format.  Moreover, not all information has been translated into the manpage version.  Thus I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc.  See the end of this manpage for instructions how to view the texinfo doc.

*   

To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following commands:

    ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi

*   

To generate a html copy,  run:

    ./configure; make html

 A premade html can be found at `http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/manual/mtools.html'

*   

To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode), run:

    ./configure; make info

The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html.  Indeed, in the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the quoting conventions used in info.