How can I get the short path for a Windows long path using MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)?

Question

MathWorks Support Team 2009-8-27

I would like to be able to get the short path in 8.3 format for a certain path, for example:

"C:\Program Files" should be transformed to "C:\Progra~1"

Answer 1

The ability to transform long paths to short paths is not available in MATLAB.

To work around this issue, if you have the Real Time Workshop (RTW), you can use a built-in function:

RTW.transformPaths('C:\Program Files')

An alternative that does not require the RTW uses the Windows File System Object:

function shortPath = getshortpath(longPath)
fs = actxserver('Scripting.FileSystemObject');
shortPath = fs.GetFolder(longPath).ShortPath;
fs.delete;