René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"[windows only] Require fails to load native addons with path longer than 260 characters","articleBody":"I'm having trouble where somewhere down the line a dependency of mine is attempting to load a native addon. Due to deep nesting the process of requiring this addon  fails with the error \"The filename or extension is too long\".\n\nHowever, I found that I am able to work around this by modifying the global `Module` to always prepend `\"\\\\\\\\?\\\\\"` to paths when attempting to load native addons.\n\nThis works because paths with that funky prefix kicks win32 path handling into extended-length path mode, according to MSDN:\nhttps://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx#short_vs._long_names\n\n\u003e To specify an extended-length path, use the \"\\\\?\\\" prefix. For example, \"\\\\?\\D:\\very long path\".\n\nMy workaround looks like this basically:\n\n```\nvar os = require('os');\nif (os.platform() == 'win32') {\n    var prefix = \"\\\\\\\\?\\\\\";\n    var Module = require('module');\n    Module._extensions['.node'] = function (module, modulePath) {\n        if (modulePath.indexOf(prefix) !== 0) {\n            modulePath = prefix + modulePath;\n        }\n        return process.dlopen(module, modulePath);\n    }\n}\n```\n\nIt appears to allow me to successfully load any native addon now, regardless of path length. I'm thinking of submitting a PR which would patch [lib/module.js#L355](https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/lib/module.js#L469) to essentially have this same functionality. \n\nWhat do you think? Are there any gotcha's or can anyone think of a reason why this wouldn't work in the general case?\n","author":{"url":"https://github.com/justinmchase","@type":"Person","name":"justinmchase"},"datePublished":"2015-09-19T20:49:37.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":11},"url":"https://github.com/2964/node/issues/2964"}