Problem programming externals with a prefix in the name

Hi,

I am making a suite of objects and I want to give them a common prefix in the name like this...

prefix.objectname~

I have made the changes to the name of the files, the project name, and the target name and this works - except that when the external loads in max it is 'greyed out' and doesn't work. I think it is because in the C code itself I have used "prefix_objectname" as using a "." would be like some kind of struct referencing.

I hope this makes sense - does anyone know how to create a working external with such a name? I am using Max OS X 10.6 and XCode 3.2,

Thanks,

Adam