To elaborate:
On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 22:40:45 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev
wrote:
If *YOU* are OK with the consequences of complexity, implement
this in YOUR code, but do not enforce it upon others.
This is much better done in user code anyway, because you only
need to expand / normalize the path and prepend the prefix only
once (root of the directory tree you're operating on), instead of
once per directory call.
We could add a `string longPath(string)` function in Phobos
(no-op on POSIX, expands and prepends prefix on Windows). I
believe I suggested the same in the bug report years ago when we
discussed it.
It is absolutely not acceptable behavior. Complain to
Microsoft. The OS should not allow users to create or select
paths that programs cannot operate on without jumping through
crazy hoops.
Microsoft could have solved this easily enough:
extern(System) void AllowLongPaths();
Programs (or programming language runtimes) which can handle
paths longer than MAX_PATH could call that function. It can also
be used as a hint to the OS that file/directory selection
dialogs, as you mentioned, are allowed to select paths longer
than MAX_PATH.
