[WIP] Truncate on character boundaries

[untitaker]

Fix #1418

[untitaker]

Alright, I think we have another problem with this:

• On Windows, the path is limited to 260 characters (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4677234/python-ioerror-exception-when-creating-a-long-file)
• On Unix, the filename/basename is limited to 200 bytes (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6571435/limit-on-file-name-length-in-bash)

So I think truncate_path shouldn't actually expose a length parameter and just do the right thing on each platform. This makes for a less confusing API IMO.

[sampsyo]

Interesting. To refine this a little bit:

• The component length limit on Unix is filesystem-dependent, and reported by statvfs. (See beets.util.max_filename_length.)
• On Windows, we use the magical \\?\ prefix to get long filenames. This gives us ("approximately") 32,767 characters for the total length, according to the reference. The component is still limited separately, to "commonly" 255 characters.

[sampsyo]

The upshot is that both platforms have component length limits. You're right, though, that the Windows limit is in characters.

[jtpavlock]

closing as abandoned