4 ms·

C:\not\sure\about\the\rest\of\you\but\i\needed\to\see\how\long\that\is\to\fully\understand\the\implications\of\this\seemingly\arbitrary\limitation\-\to\give\thi

by cstrat 13y ago

C:\not\sure\about\the\rest\of\you\but\i\needed\to\see\how\long\that\is\to\fully\understand\the\implications\of\this\seemingly\arbitrary\limitation\-\to\give\this\some\context\this\path\is\two\hundred\and\18\characters\

gilgoomesh 13y ago
When the names mean nothing, it's harder to gauge. Here's a believable directory structure that might lead to the problem: C:\Users\reasonableusername\Documents\Work\CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet\Non-Project Documents\Administrative\Business Contracts\Fiscal 2013\First Quarter\February\Week Two\TPS Reports Cover Sheet And Memos Template - 3.xls
- glennos 13y ago
  Yep, that's the sort of project path structure which was causing me grief. Excel then gave me a warning with a list of 6 possible issues, none of which mentioned the 218 limit.
- pyoung 13y ago
  Yeah, I have seen it first hand. Admittedly, there was some redundancy and some excess in the folder names, but it was for a relatively large project that was organized with fairly deep levels of sub-projects and tasks. If you happened to be working on one of the sub-projects that had a longer, more verbose title, you would run into this issue.
  - agumonkey 13y ago
    Social implications of a size limit can be quite large. Non tech saavy team forced to restart work (half of them will lose the file if saved in a temporary location) after waiting for someone to explain them this additional rule.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
And even with tab completion that path shows why only a masochist with OCD thinks paths that long or deep are needed. People who name their folders "Documents and images from the conference in August with CEO" deserve what they get. Although 260 characters does seem like the Excel team think more like me than the rest of (more reasonable) MS.
- gilgoomesh 13y ago
  > only a masochist with OCD thinks paths that long or deep are needed I'm surprised you can't imagine working on a path that deep. Path arrangements are frequently thrust upon you in work environments and if you have a lot of work (or a lot of people sharing the same folder hierarchy), you may need a deep path structure to keep it organized. Attacking people as "masochists" because their paths are difficult to type seems unfair. As for your example though, Windows usually shortens path components longer than 8 characters as the path gets longer (so "Program Files" becomes "PROGRA~1") so long single components aren't as problematic as many shorter components.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    I am pretty sure it's more for historical reasons than a solution from MS for long filenames on win32. It's due to the application writing to the file-system, not the OS. Earlier DOS FS (and others) were sometimes limited to 8 characters + 3 for extension and Windows just used to shorten filenames when writing to those FS. But to these days it still causes some problems for legacy software and you might see some PROGRA~1 hanging around but it's not from the OS, it's from the application (or its old out-date API for FS access) doing the shortening to fit the long filename it was given into an 8 characters word it thinks the FS can handle. Windows's file explorer or file picker doesn't shorten path or filenames when downloading long filename from the web for instance (via Firefox or IE).
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    Oh I can imagine working that deep - and the issue is never "if only we had MAXPATHLEN set higher our business processes would magically be more efficient". Paths that deep that are meant as markers for humans to read are a pathological case - if you don't at a minimum put a web server in front with a folder to human-readable name in front then all the other benefits of automation are likely to pass you by too. In short, paths that deep show you have humans trying to do what computers are better at. Schumpter will be round later to have a word.
adrianmsmith 13y ago
This actually happened to me; I blogged about it here. http://www.databasesandlife.com/windows-path-length-limit/ http://www.databasesandlife.com/windows-path-length-limit/

by cstrat 13y ago

gilgoomesh 13y ago

When the names mean nothing, it's harder to gauge. Here's a believable directory structure that might lead to the problem: C:\Users\reasonableusername\Documents\Work\CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet\Non-Project Documents\Administrative\Business Contracts\Fiscal 2013\First Quarter\February\Week Two\TPS Reports Cover Sheet And Memos Template - 3.xls

glennos 13y ago
Yep, that's the sort of project path structure which was causing me grief. Excel then gave me a warning with a list of 6 possible issues, none of which mentioned the 218 limit.
pyoung 13y ago
Yeah, I have seen it first hand. Admittedly, there was some redundancy and some excess in the folder names, but it was for a relatively large project that was organized with fairly deep levels of sub-projects and tasks. If you happened to be working on one of the sub-projects that had a longer, more verbose title, you would run into this issue.
- agumonkey 13y ago
  Social implications of a size limit can be quite large. Non tech saavy team forced to restart work (half of them will lose the file if saved in a temporary location) after waiting for someone to explain them this additional rule.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

And even with tab completion that path shows why only a masochist with OCD thinks paths that long or deep are needed. People who name their folders "Documents and images from the conference in August with CEO" deserve what they get. Although 260 characters does seem like the Excel team think more like me than the rest of (more reasonable) MS.

gilgoomesh 13y ago
> only a masochist with OCD thinks paths that long or deep are needed I'm surprised you can't imagine working on a path that deep. Path arrangements are frequently thrust upon you in work environments and if you have a lot of work (or a lot of people sharing the same folder hierarchy), you may need a deep path structure to keep it organized. Attacking people as "masochists" because their paths are difficult to type seems unfair. As for your example though, Windows usually shortens path components longer than 8 characters as the path gets longer (so "Program Files" becomes "PROGRA~1") so long single components aren't as problematic as many shorter components.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  I am pretty sure it's more for historical reasons than a solution from MS for long filenames on win32. It's due to the application writing to the file-system, not the OS. Earlier DOS FS (and others) were sometimes limited to 8 characters + 3 for extension and Windows just used to shorten filenames when writing to those FS. But to these days it still causes some problems for legacy software and you might see some PROGRA~1 hanging around but it's not from the OS, it's from the application (or its old out-date API for FS access) doing the shortening to fit the long filename it was given into an 8 characters word it thinks the FS can handle. Windows's file explorer or file picker doesn't shorten path or filenames when downloading long filename from the web for instance (via Firefox or IE).
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Oh I can imagine working that deep - and the issue is never "if only we had MAXPATHLEN set higher our business processes would magically be more efficient". Paths that deep that are meant as markers for humans to read are a pathological case - if you don't at a minimum put a web server in front with a folder to human-readable name in front then all the other benefits of automation are likely to pass you by too. In short, paths that deep show you have humans trying to do what computers are better at. Schumpter will be round later to have a word.

adrianmsmith 13y ago

This actually happened to me; I blogged about it here. http://www.databasesandlife.com/windows-path-length-limit/ http://www.databasesandlife.com/windows-path-length-limit/