use Win32::API;

#import the function
my $GetShortPathName = new Win32::API("kernel32","GetShortPathName",[ P,P,N ],N);


if (not defined $GetShortPathName) {
	die "could not import GetShortPathName";
}

#the name we want to convert
$longname = "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office\\OLREAD9.TXT";

#create a string big enough to hold the shortname
$shortname = " " x 80;

#retval will be length of the DOSified short name
$retval = $GetShortPathName->Call($longname,$shortname,80);

#trim the trailing blanks
#recall that $shortname = " " x 80
#and retval is the length of the name returned by GetShortPathName
$shortname = substr($shortname,0,$retval);

print "longname = \n\"$longname\", \nshortname = \n\"$shortname\"";