I recently installed Python 3.7 and at the end of the setup, there is the option to "Disable path length limit". I don't know whether or not I should do this.
What are the pros and cons of doing this? Just from the sound of it you should always disable it.
I recommend selecting that option and thereby removing the path length limit. It will potentially save you time in future on debugging an avoidable issue.
Here is an anecdote of how I came to know about it:
During the compilation of my program (C# code on a Windows machine), I started getting the following error:
error MSB3541: Files has invalid value "long\path\filename". 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.
This error was not allowing me to build my project and the only apparent solution to this issue was to shorten my path/file names. Turns out that this bug is a built-in limitation in NTFS (Window's File System): Why does the 260 character path length limit exist in Windows?
After a couple of decades with the limitation built into the NTFS file system, it has finally been fixed (Unix based system did not have it) in Windows 10 (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/FileIO/naming-a-file#maximum-path-length-limitation), but it is not enabled automatically, and needs registry (or group policy) settings to do this. The Python option allows you to disable it for Python libraries, saving you a lot of headache.
Do note that enabling this option will,
a) break compatibility of your programs on systems using older versions of Windows 10 and lower, when using long file/directory names and paths.
b) break programs on Windows 10 machines not having this option enabled, when using long file/directory names and paths.
to answer both of your questions:
The quick answer is that it doesn't matter that much, since this only matters when working with paths longer than 260 characters, not something most people do.
E.g. I've worked in teams with paths like this, and allowing them longer names would have resulted in less readable filepaths:
c:/project_name/unity/files/assets/UI/UI_2.0/levelname/season2_levelname/release_season2_levelname_ui_2/PROJECT_S2_MENU_UI/PROJECT_S2_hover_button_shadow_ui/PROJECT_S2_hover_button_shadow_ui_blue/PROJECT_S2_hover_button_shadow_ui_blue.asset
To understand the pros and cons, it helps to understand what the path length limit is.
You probably already know that a Windows path is a string, that represents where to find a file or folder.
e.g. C:\Program Files\7-Zip
longer folder or file names result in a longer string.
e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Update Health Tools
more folders inside other folders also result in a longer string
e.g. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Update Health Tools\Logs
If you have a lot of folders inside each other, with long names, you might run into an error when trying to use this path in your code.
This is because Windows has a path length limit. An update in windows 10 allows you to disable this limitation. but it doesn't do so by default.
Disabling this limitation allows your computer to use longer paths without errors.
The old windows API promised that if you wrote your application correctly, it'd continue to work in the future.
If Windows were to allow filenames longer than 260 characters then your existing application (which used the windows API correctly) would fail.
Microsoft did create a way to use the full 32,768 path names; but they had to create a new API contract to do it. This is the update on windows 10.
read more on why
I am keeping this simple and straight forward
The "Disable path length limit" option refers to the maximum length of the file paths that Windows can handle. Disabling this limit can allow for longer file paths, which can be useful if you are working with files that have very long names or are stored in deeply nested directories. However, it can also cause compatibility issues with some programs, particularly older ones that may not designed to support long file paths.
In general, it's usually not necessary to disable the path length limit unless you have a specific need for it. If you're not sure whether you need it or not, it's probably best to leave it enabled.
Generally, it's not a good idea to disable it, especially if you have programs that could potentially break upon disabling it.
I have a lot of older programs, and potentially forgetting that I disabled it, and the fact that re-enabling it (being that finding out how to) and the fact that doing that could potentially break any program that uses long file paths in its scripts, makes having it off unhelpful, and moreover possibly a waste of time and debugging.
But to defend its existence, in certain environments it can be helpful, especially in environments where making subfolders upon subfolders is key. Particularly, this is helpful when making a game with a lot of assets. But again, there are many ways to shorten subfolders (and files), and doing that makes it generally easier to type out the path if you aren't copy-and-pasting everywhere. (For example, C:\my_game\assts\01\plyr\walk_01.png is easier to type than C:\my_epic_game_featuring_my_awesome_character\assets\…)
If you have a virtual machine or just another OS to try this on where you do not have to worry about specific programs breaking upon disabling the path limit, it'd probably be useful to have this off, but for everything else, just be wary of it's probability to make more bugs than to fix.
