X-Files

Historical Notes
Andy Armstrong wrote X-Files in 1996, having apparently seen the 'Directory full' error message (triggered by attempting to save a 78th file into a directory) one time too many.

X-Files is now very tricky to find but version 0.57 (which is believed to be the last version) can be downloaded from www.mirror.ac.uk or ftp.uni-stuttgart.de, including the source code and a data recovery tool in case something goes wrong.

RISC OS has had long filename support since the release of RISC OS 4 in 1999, so this utility is only needed to read ancient data saved on old-format disks (E or F format or earlier) under RISC OS versions 3.71 and earlier.

Note that if RISC OS 3.1 is being run under VirtualAcorn, it is not affected by the infamous 77-file-per-directory limit. VirtualAcorn uses HostFS and thus supports long file names and unlimited files per directory.

By using an Image Filing System, X-Files has different advantages and disadvantages to programs such as LongFiles or raFS. These differences are discussed in this article on Long Filename Systems

When X-Files is not running, an X-File image file is a monolithic object, and individual files within the X-File image cannot be accessed or manipulated. This is quite similar to the behaviour of compressed files within an archive being managed by ArcFS or SparkFS.