Hi there,

Using perl v5.10.1 (build 1006) built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread on Windows XP, I am working on a simple Perl script to find pdf files from a Windows folder.
However, I spent already 2 days trying to figure out why I would sometimes have files with their correct names and sometimes file names with the DOS 8.3 format.

What I have discovered so far is that some files contains the Unicode Character 'MINUS SIGN' (U+2212) in their name and all of them can't be read correctly by Perl subroutines and are changed to DOS 8.3 filenames.

For instance: COPYOF~1.PDF is displayed whereas the file name is actually "Copy of PCO-1810.pdf" (minus sign is different than the standard ASCII/Windows dash, might come from MAC users but I am not sure).


I have tried almost everything I could understand about this problem:
_ used chdir/readdir,
_ used File::find,
_ used <*.pdf> on a folder handle,
_ tried to convert output from unicode to utf8 or latin1,
_ tried to use perl -CSDA to launch the script...

Do you guys have any information why the DOS 8.3 file names are displayed whereas a simple "dir" on the folder in windows DOS prompt display all files without problem?
Is it a bug or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.
Regards.
Azulito

In reply to DOS 8.3 filenames output when filenames contain Unicode Character 'MINUS SIGN' (U+2212) by Anonymous Monk

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