Fatal Error C1081

'symbol': file name exceeds number bytes in length

This error occurs when the length of the full pathname of a file exceeds the number of characters specified by _MAX_PATH (260 characters). _MAX_PATH is defined in STDLIB.H.

This error may occur even if you call CL.EXE with a short file name, because the compiler sometimes needs to generate the full pathname of the file. For example:

cl -c myfile.cpp

may cause the compiler to generate the full pathname:

D:\<very-long-directory-path>\myfile.cpp