Question

I want to make a tool that takes some filenames as parameters, but when I use this code:

ARGV.each do|a|
  puts "Argument: #{a}"
end

and I use drag and drop or “send to” in Windows, I get the short filename.
So a file like "C:\Ruby193\bin\test\New Text Document.txt" becomes
C:\Ruby193\bin\test\NEWTEX~1.TXT as the argument.

There is no problem when I run the script from the commandline, with the longfilenames as parameters.

How do i get the long filename when i use drag and drop or send to?

Answer 1

I don’t know if it is possible to change the argument you recieve on a drag and drop, but you could use the Win32 getLongPathName() function, using the Ruby Win32 bindings

–edit–
Including @peter’s solution formatted for readability:

require 'find'
require 'fileutils'
require 'Win32API'
def get_long_win32_filename(short_name)
  max_path = 1024
  long_name = " " * max_path
  lfn_size = Win32API.new("kernel32", 
      "GetLongPathName", ['P','P','L'],'L').call(short_name, long_name, max_path)
  return (1..max_path).include?(lfn_size) ? long_name[0..lfn_size-1] : short_name
end 

ARGV.each do|a|
  puts a
  puts get_long_win32_filename(a)
end