According to the method of the invention, a set of target files is linked to a main file by encoding the target addresses or URLs of these target files into the primary filename of the main file. Separator characters are used to distinguish the primary filename of the main file and the encoded address of each linked target file. Linked target files may be of any kind including, source files of the main file, metadata, multimedia information and services. Since most file systems do not accept certain characters on valid filenames, addresses of linked target files are encoded so that any forbidden character is replaced by an associated authorized character. A lexicography table stores all pairs of forbidden and corresponding authorized characters. Likewise, since filenames length is generally limited to 256 characters, the encoding process may be optimized to reduce the length of the encoded addresses or URLs.