Upper case letters and spaces in File Names 2

[MFDO]

Are Upper case letters, spaces and long File Names against NX's best practices?

Michael Fernando (CSWE)

http://www.solidCADworks.com

Tool and Die Designer
Siemens NX V8.5 + PDW
SWX 2013 SP3.0 X64
PDMWorks 2013
Logopress3
FastForm Advance
FormatWorks

 

[JohnRBaker]

While many of us 'old timers' (I've been using UG/NX for nearly 37 years), purely out of habit, may tend to avoid using spaces in files names, that's really no longer an issue with today's operating systems. And the same holds true for using mixed case letters as well, just as long as you remember that for file names, the case does not make a file name unique. In other words, you can't have two files in the same folder if the only difference in their names is the case of the letters used. For example, 'bracket.prt' is the same as 'Bracket.prt'.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

I still recommend that you try stay away from spaces and definitely non-ascii characters. Upper-lower case doesn't matter.
you might find some situation where spaces aren't accepted or the usage of them makes life more than necessary difficult.
Regards,
Tomas

 

[MFDO]

Toost,
Do you see it as an issue within NX or externally like in at file translations or at integration with third party software?

Would you be able to give some instances or share some of your experiences please?

Michael Fernando (CSWE)

http://www.solidCADworks.com

Tool and Die Designer
Siemens NX V8.5 + PDW
SWX 2013 SP3.0 X64
PDMWorks 2013
Logopress3
FastForm Advance
FormatWorks

 

[cowski]

At one place of work we used windows workstations with a linux file server. Some software that ran on the linux server didn't like spaces in the file names (backup software, IIRC). Those had to be handled specially by the IT guy. To make his life easier, we simply used underscores instead of spaces.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[Toost]

As far as i remember,... the last time i had issues was when running one of the translators. It might be updated by now.


Regards,
Tomas

 

[MFDO]

Cowski, it seems to be is the same reason why I was instructed not to use spaces. What about UPPER_CSASE characters?

Michael Fernando (CSWE)

http://www.solidCADworks.com

Tool and Die Designer
Siemens NX V8.5 + PDW
SWX 2013 SP3.0 X64
PDMWorks 2013
Logopress3
FastForm Advance
FormatWorks

 

[cowski]

I don't remember upper case being a problem, but then again, I don't remember using it either. In the concept phase, we'd give parts generic names such as rear_housing or top_cover; when we had some confidence in the design we'd have a project review. When the project was given the OK, we'd save-as our parts to an actual part number which was just a 5 digit number. The bulk of our work was done using 5 digit numeric file names. Windows file names are case insensitive (as John mentioned above) but linux is case sensitive. I suppose there is a potential for something to go wrong between the systems, but I can't think of a specific example.

I'd suggest contacting your IT department and asking for their input.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

OK, we've planned for the situation where you might be using NX on both Windows and Linux systems where the case of filenames may become an issue. To address this there's an environment variable which can be set which will force NX to either alway use 'upper' or 'lower' case file names. In other words, if this variable is set, irrespective of what you type in, the system will convert it to the 'case' as defined by this setting. You can find this vaiable, 'UGII_OPTION=', in the 'ugii_env.dat' file in the UGII folder, along with an explanation of the valid settings. Note that out-of-the-box, this variable is unset, which is why you can enter mixed-case file names.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[looslib]

Note: UGII_OPTION only works on the filename.

Don't get your hopes up that setting it to UPPERCASE will enter all text typed into NX to be converted to upper case, like in notes which are required to be in upper case when on the face of a drawing. You will still need to use the Caps Lock key for that.


"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli