In article <2A7D76A4.6FEB@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
quoted text
>According to jwinstea@jarthur.claremont.edu (Jim Winstead Jr.):
>>I don't know of any system that will give you the max filename length
>>via a system call.
>
>POSIX defines
>
>     pathconf("/directory/name", _PC_NAME_MAX)
>
>to return exactly that.  I don't have Linux, though, so I don't know
>if pathconf() is implemented.
>-- 
>Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT  <chip@tct.com>, <73717.366@compuserve.com>
>   "Do Rush place weird subliminal backmasked messages in their songs to
> compel unwilling geeks to commit evil .sig atrocities?"  -- Dean Engelhardt

On Sun stations, MAXPATHLEN defines the longestname for a path.  If you
absaolutely need a function call, just have it return that value.  I'm not at
home right now so I'm not sure which one Linux uses.  Look in <sys/params.h>
or values.h or one of those, you should find it.
-- 
Laurent Duperval
duperval@ere.umontreal.ca
duperval@jsp.umontreal.ca
"If you gotta go, you might as well go happy... or suprised"   -Me