When you reference files in Windows 95, you may encounter situationswhen you are unsure whether you’re working with a long or short file name.This becomes a problem if you are comparing file names or if you are searchingfor a specific file and do not know if it will be given in a long or shortformat. For example, Dir$() will always return a longfile name, but the file you are comparing it to may be entered by a useras either a long or short name.To compare two file names on a level field, you must change them bothto short or to long. Dir$() returns a long file name, so you can take advantageof it as a built-in file name converter. What a plus! Pass it C:PRIVAT~1MYSTUF~1NEWTEX~1.TXTand it will return NEW TEXT DOCUMENT.TXT. The only hitch is that you donot get the path, so you must pass Dir$() to each directory in the path,one by one. To do this, loop backwards through the full path string andlet Dir$() convert each subdirectory. After you get the long file namefrom the path, call Dir$(” C:PRIVAT~1MYSTUF~1″) and get MyStuff back. With each successive call, take the long names that were returnedand concatenate them into a full path string. This process will work evenif you begin with a long file name and path.