GetShortPathName

The GetShortPathName function retrieves the short path form of a specified input path.

DWORD GetShortPathName(
  LPCTSTR lpszLongPath,  // null-terminated path string
  LPTSTR lpszShortPath,  // short form buffer
  DWORD cchBuffer        // size of short form buffer
);

Parameters

lpszLongPath

[in] Pointer to a null-terminated path string. The function retrieves the short form of this path.

Windows NT/2000: In the ANSI version of this function, the name is limited to MAX_PATH characters. To extend this limit to nearly 32,000 wide characters, call the Unicode version of the function and prepend "\\?\" to the path. For more information, see File Name Conventions.

Windows 95/98: This string must not exceed MAX_PATH characters.

lpszShortPath

[out] Pointer to a buffer to receive the null-terminated short form of the path specified by lpszLongPath.

cchBuffer

[in] Specifies the size, in TCHARs, of the buffer pointed to by lpszShortPath.

Return Values

If the function succeeds, the return value is the length, in TCHARs, of the string copied to lpszShortPath, not including the terminating null character.

If the function fails due to the lpszShortPath buffer being too small to contain the short path string, the return value is the size, in TCHARs, of the short path string, including a terminating null. In this event, call the function again with a short path buffer that is at least as large as the return value times the size of a TCHAR.

If the function fails for any other reason, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

When an application calls this function and specifies a path on a volume that does not support 8.3 aliases, the function fails with ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER if the path is longer than 67 bytes.

The path specified by lpszLongPath does not have to be a full or a long path. The short form may be longer than the specifed path.

If the specified path is already in its short form, there is no need for any conversion, and the function simply copies the specified path to the buffer for the short path.

You can set lpszShortPath to the same value as lpszLongPath; in other words, you can set the buffer for the short path to the address of the input path string.

You can obtain the long name of a file from the short name by calling the GetLongPathName function. Alternatively, where GetLongPathName is not available, you can call FindFirstFile on each component of the path to get the corresponding long name.

Requirements

  Windows NT/2000: Requires Windows NT 3.5 or later.
  Windows 95/98: Requires Windows 95 or later.
  Header: Declared in Winbase.h; include Windows.h.
  Library: Use Kernel32.lib.
  Unicode: Implemented as Unicode and ANSI versions on Windows NT/2000.

See Also

File I/O Overview, File I/O Functions, GetFullPathName, GetLongPathName, FindFirstFile