Limit on File Name Length in Bash

Limit on file name length in bash

It depends very much on the filesystem. For the ext FS (currently the most used on Linux):

• max filename length: 255 bytes
• max path length: none

The extension is not something the FS is aware of, it 255 bytes, extension included (you can have file names without any extensions).

Here is a more exhaustive list of these limits, per FS.

There can also be extensions to your file system that can change your maximum length as well. For example, eCryptFS which uses part of the lower file name to keep metadata and limits the file name to a maximum length of 143 characters. See Ubuntu eCryptFS launchpad entry.

Limit on file name length in bash

It depends very much on the filesystem. For the ext FS (currently the most used on Linux):

• max filename length: 255 bytes
• max path length: none

The extension is not something the FS is aware of, it 255 bytes, extension included (you can have file names without any extensions).

Here is a more exhaustive list of these limits, per FS.

There can also be extensions to your file system that can change your maximum length as well. For example, eCryptFS which uses part of the lower file name to keep metadata and limits the file name to a maximum length of 143 characters. See Ubuntu eCryptFS launchpad entry.

Regex for relative filepath maximum size and maximum Folder name size

/^\/?(([0-9a-z]{0,255})||([0-9a-z]{1,255})?([0-9a-z]{1,255}\/)+)[0-9a-z]{1,255}\/?$/i

This regex will test if all the folder names in the path are between 1 and 255 characters long. The forward slashes from the beginning/ending of the path are optional.

Programmatically determine maximum filename length

You want pathconf or fpathconf, which are not exposed (yet) in PHP. (When they are, they'll probably be posix_pathconf.)

You may also shell out to getconf, a command-line utility interface to the same functionality. Try this on your system:

$ getconf NAME_MAX /tmp

$ getconf PATH_MAX /tmp

Filename too long in Git for Windows

Git has a limit of 4096 characters for a filename, except on Windows when Git is compiled with msys. It uses an older version of the Windows API and there's a limit of 260 characters for a filename.

So as far as I understand this, it's a limitation of msys and not of Git. You can read the details here:
https://github.com/msysgit/git/pull/110

You can circumvent this by using another Git client on Windows or set core.longpaths to true as explained in other answers.

git config --system core.longpaths true

Git is build as a combination of scripts and compiled code. With the above change some of the scripts might fail. That's the reason for core.longpaths not to be enabled by default.

The windows documentation at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation?tabs=cmd#enable-long-paths-in-windows-10-version-1607-and-later has some more information:

Starting in Windows 10, version 1607, MAX_PATH limitations have been
removed from common Win32 file and directory functions. However, you
must opt-in to the new behavior.

A registry key allows you to enable or disable the new long path
behavior. To enable long path behavior set the registry key at
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\LongPathsEnabled
(Type: REG_DWORD)

Maximum filename length in NTFS (Windows XP and Windows Vista)?

Individual components of a filename (i.e. each subdirectory along the path, and the final filename) are limited to 255 characters, and the total path length is limited to approximately 32,000 characters.

However, on Windows, you can't exceed MAX_PATH value (259 characters for files, 248 for folders). See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247.aspx for full details.

Is there any length-limits of file path in NTFS?

The 260 character limitation is not a limitation of the file system, but of the Win32 API. Win32 defines MAX_PATH as 260 which is what the API is using to check the length of the path passed into functions like FileCreate, FileOpen, etc. (which are used by .NET in the BCL).

However, you can bypass the Win32 rules and create paths up to 32K characters. Basically you need to use the "\\?\C:\MyReallyLongPath\File.txt" syntax which you may not have seen before. Last I checked, the File and FileInfo classes in .NET prevented you from using this type of path, but you can definitely do it from C/C++. Here's a link for more info.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx

How to download video in youtube whose name length is larger than 255 bytes?

Have a look at the following youtube-dl options:

• --id
• --output
• --restrict-filenames

The --id limits filenames to using the video id, --output lets you specify a template for naming the output file. Using --restrict-filenames will ensure filenames are script and shell friendly.

Have a look at the help section entitled OUTPUT TEMPLATE to see how templates work, an example is:

$ youtube-dl --output '%(title)s.%(ext)s' BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames

You may also find the --get-filename option useful. It will show you the filename that will be used without actually downloading it.

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