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authorEdward Thomson <ethomson@edwardthomson.com>2021-04-05 10:59:02 +0100
committerEdward Thomson <ethomson@edwardthomson.com>2021-04-14 23:02:51 +0100
commit78abfb172b170aca95527c32d8cea17994106c3e (patch)
tree15ae59d5d3a5ec05658d1cf664e9072b104ae769 /docs
parentcb136cddd93046d46c6a8c5ee2a3f5c30a001e97 (diff)
downloadlibgit2-78abfb172b170aca95527c32d8cea17994106c3e.tar.gz
docs: document core.longpaths support
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+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.