Re: [Boost-build] --abbreviate-paths

From: West, Larry (Larry_West_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-10-30 16:04:40

Forgive me: I'm a lurker *and* I don't actually build Boost on Windows,
but I did develop on Windows for a long time, and still do, and I find
this (doubly quoted -- key content from Daniel Wallin) statement
puzzling:

On Sun Oct 28, 2007, David Abrahams wrote:
> [...snip...]
>
>> Not using "cmd" wouldn't help with windows 260 char path limit,
>> which seems like an unsolvable problem (short of reducing the
>> features in the path, that is), or am I missing something?
>
> That's true.

The Windows 260-char path limit is for a given directory or file (and
there are ways around this at the Win32 API level, but applications --
such as compilers -- may not support the longer paths).   That is, the
total length of the directory path to any file (or directory) can't
exceed 260 characters if you want to use it in general.

But the doubly-quoted statement above mentioned "reducing features in
the path", which makes me think the author was talking about the
executable search path, i.e. the PATH environment variable.  This has no
such limit.  I'm sure it does have *some* limit, but since Windows 2000
I've used long PATH values (currently on my XP machine, my PATH's 526
chars, and with some forward slashes, too) without a problem. As a test
I just upped it to 1126 and directories on the beginning and end are
still searched.

Also, as for command-line parameters, again on my current unadulterated
XP box, I can get over 7500 chars as a parameter to echo.

Perhaps I misunderstood the context.  Perhaps older versions of Windows
are the problem?

(I don't have references for these numbers; reliable values may be
lower.)

Larry West
Intuit
San Diego