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Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:41:14 -0700
From: Linda Walsh <cygwin AT tlinx DOT org>
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Subject: Re: Cgywin filename with 255 character
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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 :-)).






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