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in reply to Re: Windows NTFS UTF-16LE File-Operations
in thread Windows NTFS UTF-16LE File-Operations

No. Long path names are nothing to do with unicode or wide characters.

They are the opposite of "short path names" -- the 8.3 FAT compatility fudge that allows the path 'Program Files' to be accessed as 'PROGRA~1'.

As such, long path names are actually just the normal path names visible in the NTFS file space.

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The start of some sanity?
  • Comment on Re^2: Windows NTFS UTF-16LE File-Operations

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Re^3: Windows NTFS UTF-16LE File-Operations
by repellent (Priest) on Feb 20, 2012 at 23:24 UTC
    Hmm, it's just that Win32::GetLongPathName() returns the perl string I'd most expect in Win32-land. By "expect", I mean "jives with what I see in Windows Explorer".

    Using Explorer, I created a file "snowman ☃" in a new folder "my_dir". That file was created by renaming an empty text file with "snowman " first, and then copy+pasting the snowman character. Then I ran the following:
    Read more... (834 Bytes)

    The results tell me that the return string from Win32::GetLongPathName() is then fit for Unicode semantics in Perl. Nevermind the underlying filesystem encoding of NTFS (UTF-16LE ? I don't know), I can now treat the path as characters from then on.

    Sure, long path names are opposite of short path names. What I'm saying is that Win32::GetLongPathName() is handy to get at the characters instead of octets given by File::Find.
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      Hm. Doesn't seem to work for me:

      C:\test\junk>dir
      12/11/2010 05:58 7 acentó.txt
      20/11/2010 09:46 <DIR> ελληνικά
      1 File(s) 7 bytes
      3 Dir(s) 236,893,585,408 bytes free

      C:\test\junk>perl -E"say for glob '*'"
      acent¾.txt
      DC44~1

      C:\test\junk>perl -E"say Win32::GetLongPathName( $_ ) for glob '*'"
      acent¾.txt
      Wide character in print at -e line 1.
      ╬Á╬╗╬╗╬À╬¢╬╣╬║╬¼

      (Code tags deliberately omitted to ensure that you can see exactly what I see on my console.)

      Conversely, Win32::FindFile does work for me:


      C:\test\junk>perl -E"say for glob '*'"
      acent�.txt
      DC44~1

      C:\test\junk>perl -E"say Win32::GetLongPathName( $_ ) for glob '*'"
      acent�.txt
      Wide character in print at -e line 1.
      ελληνικά
      ικά
      �

      C:\test\junk>perl -C0 -MWin32::FindFile -E"say for FindFile( '*' )"
      .
      ..
      acentó.txt

      ελληνικά
      ικά
      �
      With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
      Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
      "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
      In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

      The start of some sanity?
[reply]
        You need to encode back to octets the return of Win32::GetLongPathName(), because say is printing out octets. Win32::FindFile is most likely doing that for you already.

        Which encoding you choose should depend on what your console expects (to be able to redisplay the characters).

        Try:
        perl -MEncode -E "say encode( 'UTF-8', Win32::GetLongPathName( $_ ) ) 
+for glob '*'"

        [download]

        If 'UTF-8' doesn't work out, choose another encoding that works well with your console. Bear in mind that the UTF-8 encoding may be fine as-is, and that the console just needs better fonts (which is not your case, because I infer that you can see the characters displayed properly using Win32::FindFile).
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[d/l]
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        I'd love to try Win32::FindFile. Any word on how many years before it is fixed to build correctly for Perl 5.20?

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