Re: updating TeXLive packages exceeds Windows path length limit

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Nov 14 10:25, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've just downloaded the latest setup-x86.exe to update my Cygwin
> installation on a Windows XP box. While setup downloads the required
> packages, it stops with a message saying:
> 
> Can't open \\servername\path\to\Downloads\[url_of_mirror]\path\to\texlive-collection-documentation-base-20130529-1.tar.bz2.tmp
> for writing: No such file or directory
> 
> Problem is, if I try to create a file with the same name manually in
> Windows Explorer, I apparently hit the maximum allowed path length
> just after the 't' in 'tmp'. In other words, the package filename is
> exactly two characters too long on my system and using my closest
> mirror. Setup exits without updating the system.
> 
> Is there a way to fix this? I know that I can try and find a mirror
> with a shorter URL, but I expect others to bump into the same
> problem sooner or later.

You could create a symlink in \\servername\path pointing to
\\servername\path\to\Downloads\[url_of_mirror] to workaround this
I guess.

The only other way to fix this is to fix setup.  A long time ago I
tweaked setup to get rid of the MAX_PATH path length restriction, but
apparently this only worked for the files to install, not for the
archive files.  I'm just looking through the setup code for downloading
files, and it still calls the OS ANSI file API exclusively, rather then
the UNICODE API, which is the culprit for this problem.

Sigh.  This is a lot of work still to do.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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