Best way to resolve file path too long exception

Question

I created a app that downloads all document libraries in a SP Site   but at one point it giving me this error  I tried looking at google but couldn t find anything  now if anyone knows any trick to solve this problem please respond otherwise thanks for looking at it      System IO PathTooLongException  The specified path  file name  or both are too long  The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters  and the directory name must be less than 248 characters       at System IO Path NormalizePathFast String path  Boolean fullCheck       at System IO Path GetFullPathInternal String path       at System IO FileStream Init String path  FileMode mode  FileAccess access  Int32 rights  Boolean useRights  FileShare share  Int32 bufferSize  FileOptions options  SECURITY ATTRIBUTES secAttrs  String msgPath  Boolean bFromProxy       at System IO FileStream  ctor String path  FileMode mode  FileAccess access  FileShare share  Int32 bufferSize  FileOptions options       at System IO File Create String path    it reaches the limit for string  Code is given below    region Downloading Schemes      private void btnDownload Click object sender  EventArgs e                TreeNode currentNode   tvWebs SelectedNode          SPObjectData objectData    SPObjectData currentNode Tag          try                       CreateLoggingFile                using  SPWeb TopLevelWeb   objectData Web                                if TopLevelWeb    null                      dwnEachWeb TopLevelWeb  TopLevelWeb Title  tbDirectory Text                                   catch  Exception ex                        Trace WriteLine string Format  Exception caught when tried to pass TopLevelWeb  1   Title    2   object data to  dwnEachWeb method   Exception   0    ex ToString    objectData Web  objectData Title                      finally                       CloseLoggingFile                         private void dwnEachWeb SPWeb TopLevelWeb  string FolderName  string CurrentDirectory                if  TopLevelWeb    null                        if  TopLevelWeb Webs    null                                CurrentDirectory   CurrentDirectory          TopLevelWeb Title                  CreateFolder CurrentDirectory                   foreach  SPWeb ChildWeb in TopLevelWeb Webs                                         dwnEachWeb ChildWeb  ChildWeb Title  CurrentDirectory                       ChildWeb Dispose                                      dwnEachList TopLevelWeb  CurrentDirectory                     dwnEachList TopLevelWeb  FolderName  CurrentDirectory                                      private void dwnEachList SPWeb oWeb  string CurrentDirectory                foreach  SPList oList in oWeb Lists                        if  oList is SPDocumentLibrary  amp  amp   oList Hidden                                dwnEachFile oList RootFolder  CurrentDirectory                                      private void dwnEachFile SPFolder oFolder  string CurrentDirectory                if  oFolder Files Count    0                        CurrentDirectory   CurrentDirectory          oFolder Name              CreateFolder CurrentDirectory               foreach  SPFile ofile in oFolder Files                                if  CreateDirectoryStructure CurrentDirectory  ofile Url                                         var filepath   System IO Path Combine CurrentDirectory  ofile Url                       byte   binFile   ofile OpenBinary                        System IO FileStream fstream   System IO File Create filepath                       fstream Write binFile  0  binFile Length                       fstream Close                                                           creating directory where files will be download             private bool CreateDirectoryStructure string baseFolder  string filepath                if   Directory Exists baseFolder   return false           var paths   filepath Split                for  var i   0  i  lt  paths Length - 1  i                          baseFolder   System IO Path Combine baseFolder  paths i                Directory CreateDirectory baseFolder                     return true               creating folders     private bool CreateFolder string CurrentDirectory                if   Directory Exists CurrentDirectory                         Directory CreateDirectory CurrentDirectory                     return true               shorting string       endregion

User · Accepted Answer

As the cause of the error is obvious  here s some information that should help you solve the problem   See this MS article about Naming Files  Paths  and Namespaces   Here s a quote from the link      Maximum Path Length Limitation In the Windows API  with some exceptions discussed in the following paragraphs   the maximum length   for a path is MAX PATH  which is defined as 260 characters  A local   path is structured in the following order  drive letter  colon    backslash  name components separated by backslashes  and a terminating   null character  For example  the maximum path on drive D is  D  some   256-character path string lt NUL gt   where   lt NUL gt   represents the invisible   terminating null character for the current system codepage   The   characters  lt   gt  are used here for visual clarity and cannot be part of   a valid path string     And a few workarounds  taken from the comments    There are ways to solve the various problems  The basic idea of the solutions listed below is always the same  Reduce the path-length in order to have path-length   name-length  lt  MAX PATH  You may    Share a subfolder Use the commandline to assign a drive letter by means of SUBST Use AddConnection under VB to assign a drive letter to a path

User · Answer

What worked for me is moving my project as it was on the desktop  C  Users lachezar l Desktop MyFolder  to  C  0 MyFolder  which as you can see uses shorter path and reducing it solved the problem

User · Answer

If you are having an issue with your bin files due to a long path  In Visual Studio 2015 you can go to the offending project s property page and change the relative Output Directory to a shorter one   E g  bin debug  becomes C   bins MyProject

User · Answer

The solution that worked for me was to edit the registry key to enable long path behaviour  setting the value to 1  This is a new opt-in feature for Windows 10  HKLM SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control FileSystem LongPathsEnabled  Type  REG DWORD   I got this solution from a named section of the article that  james-hill posted    https   docs microsoft com windows desktop FileIO naming-a-file maximum-path-length-limitation

User · Answer

There s a library called Zeta Long Paths that provides a  NET API to work with long paths   Here s a good article that covers this issue for both  NET and PowerShell    NET  PowerShell Path too Long Exception and a  NET PowerShell Robocopy Clone

User · Answer

You can create a symbolic link with a shorter directory  First open command line for example by Shift   RightClick in your desired folder with a shorter path  you may have to run it as administrator    Then type with relative or absolute paths   mklink ShortPath To YourLinkedSolution C  Path To Your Solution  D   And then start the Solution from the shorter path  The advantage here is  You don t have to move anything

User · Answer

this may be also possibly solution It some times also occurs when you keep your Development project into too deep  means may be possible project directory may have too many directories so please don t make too many directories keep it in a simple folder inside the drives  For Example- I was also getting this error when my project was kept like this-  D  Sharad LatestWorkings GenericSurveyApplication020120 GenericSurveyApplication GenericSurveyApplication  then I simply Pasted my project inside  D  Sharad LatestWorkings GenericSurveyApplication  And Problem was solved

User · Answer

Not mention so far and an update  there is a very well establish library for handling paths that are too long  AlphaFS is a  NET library providing more complete Win32 file system functionality to the  NET platform than the standard System IO classes  The most notable deficiency of the standard  NET System IO is the lack of support of advanced NTFS features  most notably extended length path support  eg  file directory paths longer than 260 characters

User · Answer

The best answer I can find  is in one of the comments here  Adding it to the answer so that someone won t miss the comment and should definitely try this out  It fixed the issue for me   We need to map the solution folder to a drive using the  subst  command in command prompt- e g   subst z    And then open the solution from this drive  z in this case   This would shorten the path as much as possible and could solve the lengthy filename issue

User · Answer

On Windows 8 1  using  NET 3 5  I had a similar problem   Although the name of my file was only 239 characters length when I went to instantiate a FileInfo object with just the file name  without path  occurred an exception of type System  IO PathTooLongException  2014-01-22 11 10 35 DEBUG LogicalDOCOutlookAddIn LogicalDOCAddIn - fileName Length  239  2014-01-22 11 10 35 ERROR LogicalDOCOutlookAddIn LogicalDOCAddIn - Exception in ImportEmail System IO PathTooLongException  Percorso e o nome di file specificato troppo lungo  Il nome di file completo deve contenere meno di 260 caratteri  mentre il nome di directory deve contenere meno di 248 caratteri     in System IO Path NormalizePathFast String path  Boolean fullCheck     in System IO FileInfo  ctor String fileName     in LogicalDOCOutlookAddIn LogicalDOCAddIn GetTempFilePath String fileName  in C  Users alle Documents Visual Studio 2010 Projects MyAddin1Outlook20072010 MyAddin1Outlook20072010 LogicalDOCAddIn cs riga 692    in LogicalDOCOutlookAddIn LogicalDOCAddIn ImportEmail  MailItem mailItem  OutlookConfigXML configXML  Int64 targetFolderID  String SID  in C  Users alle Documents Visual Studio 2010 Projects MyAddin1Outlook20072010 MyAddin1Outlook20072010 LogicalDOCAddIn cs riga 857    in LogicalDOCOutlookAddIn LogicalDOCAddIn ImportEmails Explorers explorers  OutlookConfigXML configXML  Int64 targetFolderID  Boolean suppressResultMB  in C  Users alle Documents Visual Studio 2010 Projects MyAddin1Outlook20072010 MyAddin1Outlook20072010 LogicalDOCAddIn cs riga 99   I resolved the problem trimming the file name to 204 characters  extension included

User · Answer

From my experience  won t recommend my below answer for any public facing Web applications   If you need it for your inhouse tools or for Testing  I would recommend to share it on your own machine   -Right click on the root path you need to access -Choose Properties -Click on Share button and add your chosen users who can access it   This will then create a shared directory like    PCName   YourSharedRootDirectory  This could be definitely much less than your full path I hope  for me I could reduce to 30 characters from about 290 characters

[c#] Best way to resolve file path too long exception

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