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Bart

Software Engineer - Red Gate Software

.NET Reflector Support: I'm getting an error saying a path and/or filename is too long

Published Wednesday, August 05, 2009 6:33 PM

You may see the error "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," under the following circumstances:

This is not a problem with .NET Reflector, or any of its add-ins, but is rather a limitation of the Windows operating system:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365247(VS.85).aspx#maximum_path_length

The solution is to either move the assembly you're trying to open into a directory with a shorter path-i.e., that is less deeply nested in the directory hierarchy-or to export source code to a directory with a shorter path.

In case you're interested, the pros and cons of the 260 character path limit on Windows are discussed in these posts:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000729.html

http://eamon.nerbonne.org/2006/11/why-maximum-path-lengths-are-bad-idea.html

by Bart Read
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About Bart Read

Bart has done many things since he started work at Red Gate Software Ltd in August 2004, but nowadays he's (mainly) the product manager for the .NET Developer Tools. He still feels like this is a bit like admitting you were cheering for the Empire whilst watching Star Wars, but for now he's along for the ride. In a previous incarnation he was a project manager leading the .NET Reflector Pro, ANTS Memory Profiler 5, ANTS Performance Profiler 4 & 5, and SQL Prompt 3.0 - 3.6 projects. He still occasionally writes some code and, in the past, has touched the code for most of the Red Gate SQL developer tools... some of them still haven't recovered from the shock. He was born and grew up in Dorset, was educated in Nottingham and London, and likes music and real ale. His photo is extremely misleading.
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