How to get Windows short file name in python?

Question

I need to determine Windows short file name from my python code. For that I can find a solution using the win32api.

import win32api
long_file_name='C:\Program Files\I am a file'
short_file_name=win32api.GetShortPathName(long_file_name)

Reference: http://blog.lowkster.com/2008/10/spaces-in-directory-names-i-really-love.html

Unfortunately for that I need to install pywin32 or ActivePython which is not possible in my case.

Also reference from SO:

Getting short path in python: Getting short path in python

Answer 1

You can use ctypes. According to the documentation on MSDN, GetShortPathName is in KERNEL32.DLL. Note that the real functions are GetShortPathNameW for wide (Unicode) characters and GetShortPathNameA for single-byte characters. Since wide characters are more general, we'll use that version. First, set the prototype according to the documentation:

import ctypes
from ctypes import wintypes
_GetShortPathNameW = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetShortPathNameW
_GetShortPathNameW.argtypes = [wintypes.LPCWSTR, wintypes.LPWSTR, wintypes.DWORD]
_GetShortPathNameW.restype = wintypes.DWORD

GetShortPathName is used by first calling it without a destination buffer. It will return the number of characters you need to make the destination buffer. You then call it again with a buffer of that size. If, due to a TOCTTOU problem, the return value is still larger, keep trying until you've got it right. So:

def get_short_path_name(long_name):
    """
    Gets the short path name of a given long path.
    http://stackoverflow.com/a/23598461/200291
    """
    output_buf_size = 0
    while True:
        output_buf = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(output_buf_size)
        needed = _GetShortPathNameW(long_name, output_buf, output_buf_size)
        if output_buf_size >= needed:
            return output_buf.value
        else:
            output_buf_size = needed