[R-pkg-devel] Wrong mailing list: Could the 100 byte path length limit be lifted?

At this point, the policy appears to have nothing to do with tar, contrary to the error message. Thus, replacing tar with zip wouldn't address CRAN's concern. The policy given in this thread (and seemingly unstated anywhere public) is that CRAN wants to allow someone on Windows to unpack an R package in a directory with a path length of 160 characters, given the 260 limit on Windows.

The implication here is that developers of public libraries needs to get their act together because they have *total path lengths* of 85 characters, that one needs to rename to include in an R package,  in order to accommodate someone who is unpacking R packages in directories with lengths of 160 characters (just the directory length!). I doubt such people exist, so we are accommodating a myth. I don't even have directories that long on my computer, and I certainly wouldn't be unpacking R packages in them if I did.

Path lengths in packages of 130 to 150 characters would allow unpacking in directories of 130 to 110 characters. Anything in that range would likely result in no or very few problems for either the people creating or the people unpacking packages. The claim that people need to use sensible naming schemes goes both ways. One can't expect unreasonably long path in packages, and people making packages can't expect people try to unpack into unreasonably long directories. Yet, it's impossible to miss the great disparity in the current split of 100 character total path vs 160 characters for just a directory path.

[R-pkg-devel] Wrong mailing list: Could the 100 byte path length limit be lifted?

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