X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Message-ID: <44C665CA.8010707@tlinx.org> Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:41:14 -0700 From: Linda Walsh User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (Windows/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cygwin@cygwin.com Subject: Re: Cgywin filename with 255 character References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin@cygwin.com Jörg Schaible wrote: > Is there any pointer at MS, where this is described exaclty? I was only able to find some entries in the knowledge base that describe applications that are affected by this limit, but nowhere an explanation under what circumstances a process/application is hit by this limit. > The 255 character limit is a WinAPI limit, not an OS limit. Posix pathnames built on top of Microsoft's Posix layer wouldn't have this limitation. " Many Windows programs expect the maximum path length to be shorter than 255 characters. Therefore, these programs only allocate enough internal storage to handle these typical paths. *NTFS does not have this limit and it can hold much longer paths*." - http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=320081 Windows has a 255 total char/path limit, but those path are directory and mount-point relative, so the full path from the root can easily exceed 255 characters. If you need to have full posix compatibility, maybe using Microsoft's Posix subsystem will be suitable. Cygwin is built on top of the WinAPI, which still has it's roots in FAT compatibility and is thus limited by that API. Cygwin is unfortunately, not suitable for handling the full range of NTFS filenames (yet :-)). -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/