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Subject: Re: [boost] [build] File / path lengths difficult to manage on Windows
From: Niall Douglas (s_sourceforge_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-11-13 12:31:40


On 13 Nov 2013 at 8:16, Ben Craig wrote:

> I was unzipping boost 1.55 on my Windows machine, into what I thought was
> a reasonable location. 7-zip eventually complained about a file that it
> could not write because the path was too long. Most APIs on Windows
> restrict paths to ~260 characters. The longest file in the boost 1.55
> release is the following:

I would report this as a bug to 7zip. The MAX_PATH limit is purely
for backwards compatibility only, and every Win32 API can easily take
32k paths by prepending a magic marker.

FYI the NT kernel API always takes 32k paths, and there you prepend a
magic marker to indicate you are sending a DOS compatibility path.
The Win32 layer basically gets in the way. As a result, AFIO uses the
NT kernel API directly and skips the Win32 imposed nonsense which
actually doubles the maximum rate of file handle creation :)

Niall

-- 
Currently unemployed and looking for work.
Work Portfolio: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/nialldouglas/



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