Re: [rdiff-backup-users] long file path support for windows

[Ryan How]

Hmmm... maybe this isn't a bug at all? I was just trying to create long 
path in explorer and it has a limit also (round about the 260 it would 
seem). I used the UNC path and I couldn't even navigate to the deepest 
level getting an error.

I used the subst command to go beyond the path limit. When going back to 
the original path you simply can't access the files from explorer!

I just tried it on vista too!. Doesn't work either!.

It seems long paths on windows are stuffed anyway. If you create a file 
you can't access it anyway. (I know if rdiff-backup worked with long 
paths then it could access it, but I like the idea of manually being 
able to get to the backup files if needs be)

So the rules would just be, don't backup to a folder which is too deep, 
and don't backup from a folder that goes too deep! (because the added 
rdiff-backup-data folder will add extra onto the path and cause the error)

Ok... so... can we just change rdiff-backup to instead of crashing to 
print out a warning that the path is too long and skip the file? The 
error would be originating in os.makedirs ? So if we can try catch (does 
python have that?) any calls then skip the file.

Thanks for listening to my thinking out loud.



Ryan How wrote:
> Hmm.. The current cygwin head has unicode and long file path support I 
> believe. I wonder about going down that path again until windows 
> python catches up...
>
> According to http://bugs.python.org/issue542314 the long file path 
> issue is resolved in python 2.5 if using UNC paths ?
>
> I'm gonna do some investigating :)
>
>
> > > And I don't know about long file paths on Windows happening in the 
> > > 1.2.x
> > > branch.... I think you're going to need to wait for Python 3 and an 
> > > updated
> > > WinPython with Unicode operations. :-/
> >
> > As a possible workaround, from the Windows CLI you can try to use
> > subst to map a new drive letter into the middle of you longpath.
> >
> > ie.
> > if you know you have long paths within "c:\documents and
> > settings\administrator\documents" you should be able to do:
> >
> > subst x: "c:\documents and settings\administrator\documents"
> > rdiff-backup x:
> >
> > And gain 40 or so chars.
>
>
>
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