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

Question

MathWorks Support Team on 27 Aug 2009

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

MathWorks Support Team on 27 Aug 2009

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;