Python - Windows maximum directory path length workaround

Question

The problem is the character limit for the path in windows when creating multiple directories using pythons os.makedirs()

I found this post when searching f

Answer 1

you need to use unc path and unicode filenames, but not all python functions are aware of this, os.mkdir works while os.makedirs not

import os

path = u'\\\\?\\c:\\'

for i in xrange(1000):
    path += u'subdir\\'
    os.mkdir(path)

but it's better to give also the code to remove them, windows explorer is unable to delete

import os

path = u'\\\\?\\c:\\'

for i in xrange(1000, 0, -1):
    try:
        os.rmdir(path + (u'subdir\\' * i))
    except:
        pass

Answer 2

Per this stackoverflow answer: while chdir can go up one directory with os.chdir(".."), the platform-agnostic way is: os.chdir(os.pardir).

Either call this N times in a loop;
or try an unreadable one-liner like this (untested):
os.chdir(os.path.join(*([os.pardir] * NUM_TIMES)))

(Instead of path.split('/'), you could also use the method described here for it to work on all operating systems)