[twg-tds] question about file names

[Bernard Gaulle]

Hi Karl and co,

  I'm currently developping a LaTeX package for
localization. Obviously, it will be based on <languages>
and give access to related <message> files. Thus when
naming a file for that purpose i need to specify:

-1 a <language> name
-2 a package name (the localized package) 
-3 an id (which identify my localizing package)
-4 an extension

and these part names should be separated to be human readable.
Due to usual TDS and ISO-9660 restrictions, these names would
look like: la_pa_id.tex
where "la" identifies a <language>
      "pa" identifies a package
and   "id" identifies the localizer.
It's human readable BUT not human understandable.

So, my question is: if i use 1) more than 8 chars file names
and 2) a separator like "-" for the second one, 
giving a file name like, e.g. "english_inputenc-msg.tex",
which part of the LaTeX community could not use the system now?

A way could be to identify the localizer just thru a new
file name extension, e.g. lan_pack.msg
but it's still not very usable.

Another way would be to split the name such that each first 
two parts would be a subdirectory, e.g. inputenc/msg/english.tex
or inputenc/english.msg
These solution depends of the separator used by the operating 
system and this is not as general as we could expect for a 
localization system. It also introduces, at least, one more 
level in the tree and a lot of file names "english.tex" or
"english.msg" will poluate the texmf. So, what?

I would appreciate comments about this pb.

Thanks,

  --bg