Maximum Length For Filename

Question

What is the maximum length allowed for filenames? And is the max different for different operating system? I'm asking because I have trouble creating or deleting files, and I suspect the error was because of long file names.

1. Creating:

I wrote a program that will read a xml source and save a copy of the file. The xml contains hundreds of <Document>, and each have childnode <Name> and <Format>, the saved file is named based on what I read in the xml. For example, if I have the code below, I will save a file called test.txt

<Document>
    <Name>test</Name>
    <Format>.txt</Format>
</Document>

I declared a counter in my code, and I found out not all files are successfully saved. After going through the large xml file, I found out the program fail to save the files whose <Name> are like a whole paragraph long. I modify my code to save as a different name if <Name> is longer than 15 characters, and it went through no problem. So I think the issue was that the filename is too long.

2. Deleting

I found a random file on my computer, and I was not able to delete it. The error says that the file name was too long, even if I rename the file to 1 character. The file doesn't take up much space, but it was just annoying being there and not doing anything.

So my overall question is: What is the maximum and minimum length for filenames? Does it differ based on the operating system? And how can I delete the file I mentioned in 2?

Answer 1

It depends on the filesystem. Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Limits

255 characters is a common maximum length these days.