#95 Bash Does Not Properly Process Deep/Long Directory Paths

[Eric Robertson]

If a deep directory path is created on an ODS-5 file system using DCL and then Bash 4.3.30(0) or earlier is subsequently used to progress through the deep directory path using the cd command, Bash begins to operate with a faulty working directory path string when the directory path (in OpenVMS DCL syntax) exceeds 512 characters.

There is also a related problem when you use the DCL command SET DEFAULT [.dirname] repeatedly until the default path exceeds 255 characters before executing Bash. Under these conditions Bash is unable to properly determine the current working directory as a result of DCL starting to use DID abbreviated OpenVMS path strings.

[John Malmberg]

While we have improved the situtation in Bash and Coretutils, there appear to be bugs in the deep directory handling in the CRTL that we can not completely overcome.

The coreutils release notes describe a workaround for using deep directory paths.

[John Malmberg]

Closing as it appears that we have done as much as we can until fixes are implemented in the CRTL