I'm using Git-1.9.0-preview20140217
for Windows. As I know, this release should fix the issue with too long filenames. But not for me.
Surely I'm doing something wrong: I did git config core.longpaths true
and git add .
and then git commit
. Everything went well. But when I now do a git status
, I get a list of files with Filename too long
, for example:
node_modules/grunt-contrib-imagemin/node_modules/pngquant-bin/node_modules/bin-wrapper/node_modules/download/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/node_modules/combined-stream/node_modules/delayed-stream/test/integration/test-handle-source-errors.js: Filename too long
It is quite simple to reproduce for me: just create a Yeoman web application with the Angular generator ("yo angular") and remove node_modules
from the .gitignore
file. Then repeat the aforementioned Git commands.
What am I missing here?
Best Answer
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
totrue
as explained in other answers.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://docs.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: