HPUnix call to OS failed on copying files with chinese name..

[Curious_Hell]

I wonder if I could find answer to the prospect of installing chinese fonts in HPUX.

OS Details : HP-UX  B.11.23 U ia64  

When I copied file names in chinese to the OS, I get the following error message.

7/26/2011 10:56:31 AM  Unable to copy docs\107990\RE  CMS 案件インターロックのお願い.msg: A call to an OS function failed

7/26/2011 10:56:32 AM  Unable to copy \docs\108012\108012+108015 actual ☆　派遣社員管理台帳（最新）.xls: A call to an OS function failed

I don't think we have the locale installed. Could someone tell me where to find the fonts files and how to install them ?

Thanks.

$ locale -a
C
POSIX
C.iso88591
C.iso885915
C.utf8
univ.utf8
es_AR.iso88591
es_AR.iso885915
es_AR.utf8
es_BO.iso88591
es_BO.iso885915
es_CL.iso88591
es_CL.iso885915
es_CL.utf8
es_CO.iso88591
es_CO.iso885915
es_CO.utf8
es_CR.iso88591
es_CR.iso885915
es_EC.iso88591
es_EC.iso885915
es_ES.iso88591
es_ES.iso885915@euro
es_ES.roman8
es_ES.utf8
es_GT.iso88591
es_GT.iso885915
es_MX.iso88591
es_MX.iso885915
es_MX.utf8
es_NI.iso88591
es_NI.iso885915
es_PA.iso88591
es_PA.iso885915
es_PE.iso88591
es_PE.iso885915
es_PE.utf8
es_PR.iso88591
es_PR.iso885915
es_PR.utf8
es_PY.iso88591
es_PY.iso885915
es_SV.iso88591
es_SV.iso885915
es_UY.iso88591
es_UY.iso885915
es_UY.utf8
es_VE.iso88591
es_VE.iso885915
es_VE.utf8
ko_KR.eucKR
ko_KR.utf8
ja_JP.SJIS
ja_JP.eucJP
ja_JP.kana8
ja_JP.utf8
it_IT.iso88591
it_IT.iso885915@euro
it_IT.roman8
it_IT.utf8
de_DE.iso88591
de_DE.iso885915@euro
de_DE.roman8
de_DE.utf8
fr_CA.iso88591
fr_CA.iso885915
fr_CA.roman8
fr_CA.utf8
fr_FR.iso88591
fr_FR.iso885915@euro
fr_FR.roman8
fr_FR.utf8
zh_HK.hkbig5
zh_HK.utf8
zh_TW.big5
zh_TW.ccdc
zh_TW.eucTW
zh_TW.utf8
zh_CN.gb18030
zh_CN.hp15CN
zh_CN.utf8
ar_DZ.arabic8
ar_SA.arabic8
ar_SA.iso88596
bg_BG.iso88595
cs_CZ.iso88592
da_DK.iso88591
da_DK.iso885915@euro
da_DK.roman8
nl_NL.iso88591
nl_NL.iso885915@euro
nl_NL.roman8
en_GB.iso88591
en_GB.iso885915@euro
en_GB.roman8
en_US.iso88591
en_US.roman8
fi_FI.iso88591
fi_FI.iso885915@euro
fi_FI.roman8
el_GR.greek8
el_GR.iso88597
el_GR.utf8
iw_IL.hebrew8
iw_IL.iso88598
hu_HU.iso88592
is_IS.iso88591
is_IS.iso885915@euro
is_IS.roman8
no_NO.iso88591
no_NO.iso885915@euro
no_NO.roman8
pl_PL.iso88592
pt_BR.iso88591
pt_BR.iso885915
pt_BR.utf8
pt_PT.iso88591
pt_PT.iso885915@euro
pt_PT.roman8
ro_RO.iso88592
ru_RU.iso88595
hr_HR.iso88592
sk_SK.iso88592
sl_SI.iso88592
sv_SE.iso88591
sv_SE.iso885915@euro
sv_SE.roman8
sv_SE.utf8
th_TH.tis620
tr_TR.iso88599
tr_TR.turkish8
ar_DZ.utf8
ar_SA.utf8
bg_BG.utf8
cs_CZ.utf8
da_DK.utf8
nl_NL.utf8
en_GB.utf8
en_US.utf8
fi_FI.utf8
iw_IL.utf8
hu_HU.utf8
is_IS.utf8
no_NO.utf8
pl_PL.utf8
pt_PT.utf8
ro_RO.utf8
ru_RU.utf8
hr_HR.utf8
sk_SK.utf8
sl_SI.utf8
es_BO.utf8
es_CR.utf8
es_EC.utf8
es_GT.utf8
es_NI.utf8
es_PA.utf8
es_PY.utf8
es_SV.utf8
tr_TR.utf8
de_DE.iso88594
et_EE.iso885915
et_EE.iso88594
et_EE.utf8
lt_LT.iso885913
lt_LT.iso88594
lt_LT.utf8
lv_LV.iso885913
lv_LV.iso88594
lv_LV.utf8
ru_RU.cp1251
ru_RU.koi8r
uk_UA.cp1251
uk_UA.utf8

[Matti_Kurkela · Accepted solution]

Your log extract uses Windows-style backslashes (\) as path component separators, instead of Unix-style forward slashes (/). The program that produced the log reported "A call to an OS function failed", but did not produce any information about the failed function and the error code it returned. That information would be important in understanding cause of the failure.

If you don't have the chinese font files on the HP-UX system, it's a problem only if you're using an application that produces a graphical representation of the filename on the HP-UX system: that is, a xterm or a locally connected VGA monitor. In all the other cases, the OS only needs to handle the filename as a 8-bit clean string: the actual output of Chinese characters is handled by the terminal (or terminal emulator), which is a different device or software entity on your workstation. A physical terminal uses fonts included in its firmware, and a character-based terminal emulator software usually uses whatever fonts are available on the host the emulator is running on.

For historical reasons, if you haven't set your locale settings correctly, Unix may restrict the set of "valid filename characters" to US-ASCII only. On modern Unixes, this can be avoided by selecting *any* UTF-8 Unicode locale, and by making sure all the programs that bring in files to the system will use UTF-8 character set when assigning filenames.

If you're using Samba/CIFS on your HP-UX to allow network access to files on the HP-UX system from Windows workstations, you must configure the Samba/CIFS server to convert the filenames to UTF-8 in incoming requests from the Windows systems, and back to whatever encoding the Windows systems are using in outgoing replies.

If you're using FTP or similar service to transfer files between Windows and HP-UX, you must make sure the FTP (or similar) file transfer service on the HP-UX side is configured to use a locale setting that enables UTF-8 support, and you must use a FTP client that converts the filenames to UTF-8 when sending file transfer requests to HP-UX. (The support of UTF-8 in the FTP protocol is an optional extension, defined in RFC 2640.)

In your case, the C.utf8 or univ.utf8 locales might be suitable if your locale settings are currently completely unset (run "locale" without any options to check the current locale settings).

[Curious_Hell]

Matti,

Your below comment was on target and solved the problem. I was using WInSCP FTP client and it did not force UTF-8 encoding on the file name. I switched to FileZilla and forced it to encode UTF-8 and the problem disappeared. 

"If you're using FTP or similar service to transfer files between Windows and HP-UX, you must make sure the FTP (or similar) file transfer service on the HP-UX side is configured to use a locale setting that enables UTF-8 support, and you must use a FTP client that converts the filenames to UTF-8 when sending file transfer requests to HP-UX. (The support of UTF-8 in the FTP protocol is an optional extension, defined in RFC 2640.)"

Thank you very much and Salute to you !