Re: [boost] [build] File / path lengths difficult to manage on Windows

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/