diff options
Diffstat (limited to '')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/win32-longpaths.md | 36 |
1 files changed, 36 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/win32-longpaths.md b/docs/win32-longpaths.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a18152f --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/win32-longpaths.md @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +core.longpaths support +====================== + +Historically, Windows has limited absolute path lengths to `MAX_PATH` +(260) characters. + +Unfortunately, 260 characters is a punishing small maximum. This is +especially true for developers where dependencies may have dependencies +in a folder, each dependency themselves having dependencies in a +sub-folder, ad (seemingly) infinitum. + +So although the Windows APIs _by default_ honor this 260 character +maximum, you can get around this by using separate APIs. Git honors a +`core.longpaths` configuration option that allows some paths on Windows +to exceed these 260 character limits. + +And because they've gone and done it, that means that libgit2 has to +honor this value, too. + +Since `core.longpaths` is a _configuration option_ that means that we +need to be able to resolve a configuration - including in _the repository +itself_ in order to know whether long paths should be supported. + +Therefore, in libgit2, `core.longpaths` affects paths in working +directories _only_. Paths to the repository, and to items inside the +`.git` folder, must be no longer than 260 characters. + +This definition is required to avoid a paradoxical setting: if you +had a repository in a folder that was 280 characters long, how would +you know whether `core.longpaths` support should be enabled? Even if +`core.longpaths` was set to true in a system configuration file, the +repository itself may set `core.longpaths` to false in _its_ configuration +file, which you could only read if `core.longpaths` were set to true. + +Thus, `core.longpaths` must _only_ apply to working directory items, +and cannot apply to the `.git` folder or its contents. |