How to find long file names?

Posted by Lord_Aletheia@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 14 comments

I’m migrating data to an encrypted shared folder with file/folder name length limitation of 143 English characters, is there an app or command I could use to locate names above a certain length, thx

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michaelpaoli@reddit

find / -name '???.....????*' -print

Use ? the relevant number of times for the minimum number of characters you want to see in the resultant filenames, e.g. if the limit is 143 characters, use 144 ? characters, then you'll just see files that have a name length of 144 or more characters. If you want to limit to files of type ordinary file, also include -type f (before the -print), if you want to discard potentially spurious errors (e.g. on active filesystems) use 2>>/dev/null at the end.

Anyway, applicable for *nix, you didn't say what OS you're on, but for others, can typically do similarly (e.g. WSL on Windows).

$ ls
This_filename_is_141_characthers_long._______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This_filename_is_142_characthers_long.________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This_filename_is_143_characthers_long._________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This_filename_is_144_characthers_long.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This_filename_is_145_characthers_long.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
$ find * -name '????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????*' -print
This_filename_is_144_characthers_long.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This_filename_is_145_characthers_long.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
$

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taint3d@reddit

Busybox find and fdfind are available on Windows. You'd need a bit of logic to switch drives after each run, but fdfind . C:/ | ? $_ -ge $nameLimit | tee longpaths.txt should work.

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ZAFJB@reddit

XY problem

I would question the sanity of implementing something that has a limit of 143 English characters.

Long filenames have been a thing for over a quarter of a century now.

Implement something modern.

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petarian83@reddit

I have not tried the following and therefore, not sure if it will work.

Open a Command Prompt and go to the folder where the files are saved.
Run a DIR command with a /b, which will only return the file names
Then, write a batch file using the tip on https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/batch-script-string-length/
Merge the logic of the batch file with the output of DIR command

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Tymanthius@reddit

I would think getting the full path from powershell and then useing .count might be easier?

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neotearoa@reddit

It's .length perhaps? Count is file size in this case I believe. If I'm wrong, excoriate me gently .

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Bartghamilton@reddit

This is exactly how I’ve done it in the past. There are command line switches to get the full path listed in each file. Then I’d open it in excel and parse out the file name and do a =len(cellwithfilename) to get the length. Filter on that length output column and you’ve got it. Having that full path in each line then helps you see exactly where the file is.

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rossco71@reddit

Easiest way for a windows service is just using a tool like Path Length Checker

https://github.com/deadlydog/PathLengthChecker

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

Maybe this could work?

while {<globbin' yer drive>} {
  foreach filename $<the glob> {
    if {[string length [file tail $<filename>]] > 143 {
      puts $<reportfile> $<filename>
    }
  }
}

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