Tcl Source Code

Maybe this isn't bug, but annoying feature - 
under Windows path size for all file operations 
limited to about 250 characters, as result, i can't 
work with files, placed in deep directory trees, with 
path longer than 250 characters.
Of course, on pure WinAPI (C/C++) i can work with long 
paths without any problems.

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Unless or until new Win32 api's are available/used this bug 
can't be fixed.

I'll add note to this fact to filename.n, and will close 
the bug (p.s. I don't see a 'maybe' in "Of course, on pure 
WinAPI (C/C++) i can work with long paths without any 
problems").

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Really, under windows there are problems with names of 
files in length close to boundary 260 characters. I rewrite 
the test, also have broken off - as was fairly remarked, 
these problems actually arises at a winapi level. All of an 
apology for early bugreport, though I have written 
about "maybe". :)

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Thas to be related in some way to an internal 260 (seems 
like 260 to me) char limit.  On Win2K, you can try this:

for { set i 100 } { $i < 500 } { incr i } {
set str [string replace [string repeat a $i] end-3 end $i]
  if {[catch {close [open $str w]}]} {
    puts "stopped at $i, allowed \
      [expr {[string length [pwd]]+$i-1}] chars total"
    break
  }
}

For me that returns:
    stopped at 244, allowed 259 chars total

(you have to allow for [pwd] size).  I then went into 
explorer to see if I could edit the file name to be longer -
 I couldn't!  I could remove and add a char, but it 
wouldn't let me go longer.  That indicates a system limit.

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I think an example of some Tcl code
failing to do what you expect would
help clarify this report, and help
locate what code needs changing.

Also, what specific Windows platform
are we talking about?

File Added - 9895: pathlength.tcl

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It would have been helpful to have a more precise example 
of the problem, but fortunately it is easyish to 
reproduce.  The attached script can show at least one bug 
of this type.  It eventually fails with:

can't create 
directory "C:/Apps/dir0.8519/dir0.9923/dir0.1220/dir0.6213/d
ir0.5330/dir0.0420/dir0.7874/dir0.5259/dir0.3268/dir0.1379/d
ir0.6095/dir0.3286/dir0.3591/dir0.5962/dir0.7668/dir0.2869/d
ir0.2434/dir0.3738/dir0.8613/dir0.4409/dir0.5180/dir0.5485/d
ir0.6886/dir0.4262/dir0.1771": file name too long
% 

Since you seem to know something of the Win32 API's 
involved here, Sergey, perhaps you can look at the APIs 
used (they are in tclWin32dll.c, where either some ascii or 
unicode api's are loaded into a lookup table, from which 
they are then called in, say, tclWinFCmd.c or tclWinFile.c) 
and suggest what is wrong with them.  I don't believe Tcl 
itself has any filename length limitations, so I think the 
problem could be we are using older Win32 APIs which have 
such limitations.