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Number   :  5032
Date     :  2003-07-14
Author   :  james sadler
Subject  :  Re: pathnames exceeding 255 characters - any way to deal with them?
Size(KB) :  3


 One trick is to use the ren command at the dos
prompt. Progra~1 can be simple renamed a. The next
level can be named b. If there is a single huge
directory like 1234567----- then the * command can be
used. For example ren 123* to any short name.
--- Kan Yabumoto  wrote:
> 
> Anykey wrote:
> 
> >I just did an XXCOPY location with an /RC switch
> ... and then found that
> >some files couldn't be deleted, because the
> pathname exceeded the 255
> >character limited. The files were in deeply nested
> folders and also the
> >filenames themselves had ridiculously long names
> (e.g. from the very long
> >title of the saved web page).
> 
> 
> 
> XXCOPY is not a tool to undo some irregularities in
> hard disk.
> It assumes that the volume it accesses is in a
> healthy state.
> 
> I believe in many cases, an illegally long overall
> pathname is
> a result of renaming a directory with a longer name
> which pushed the overall path beyond the limit. The
> Windows
> system apparently does not check all the contents in
> the
> subdirectory when a directory name is lengthened by
> a rename
> operation. Moving a whole directory from one place
> to another
> (a form of renaming) may also result in a similar
> situation.
> 
> For example, let me illustrate how you can make an
> exceedingly
> long (overall) pathname.
> 
> md \a
> md \a\b
> md \a\b\c
> md \a\b\c\d
> md \a\b\c\d\e
> md \a\b\c\d\e\f
> echo This is a test > \a\b\c\d\e\f\testfile.txt
> 
> (The last line creates "testfile.txt".)
> 
> Now, rename each of the directories to something
> very long.
> 
> ren \a\b\c\d\e\f
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> ren \a\b\c\d\e 
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> ren \a\b\c\d 
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> ren \a\b\c 
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> ren \a\b 
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> ren \a 
> long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> 
> Now, each level is 50 characters long, with 6 levels
> altogether, the full parent directory name (not
> counting the
> "lastname" and the backslashes and drive letter and
> colon),
> for "testfile.txt" is now 300 characters long. 
> Somewhere along
> the above steps, the file's overall length exceeded
> the limit.
> But, the Windows (I'm testing this on XP-Pro) did
> not complain.
> 
> If you try to access the whole directory using the
> LFN, you will
> probably have problems. But, in a case like this
> where there are
> a lot of room to shorten the overall length by
> accessing the whole
> thing using the SFN counterpart, you can still
> accomplish a lot.
> 
> E.g., knowing that long_name_123456... is now
> assigned the SFN of
> "LONG_N~1", you may reference the "testfile.txt" by
> 
> 
>
\long_n~1\long_n~1\long_n~1\long_n~1\long_n~1\long_n~1\testfile.txt
> 
> You may reference it this way to delete the file. 
> If you have
> too many files in the directory deep inside like
> this, you may
> shorten the directory names.
> 
> ren
> \long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890 
> a
> ren
>
\a\long_name_1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
> a
> ...
> 
> Alternatively, if the problem is just one directory
> name
> in between which is very long, you may run DIR /X to
> find
> out what is the SFN for the directory and use its
> SFN name
> to reach the end without renaming steps.
> 
> Kan Yabumoto
> 
> 
> 


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