Is there a limit on an Excel worksheet's name length?

Question

When I try to set a longish worksheet name using ruby and win32ole with the following code:

require \"win32ole\"
excel = WIN32OLE.new(\'Excel.Application\')
         


        

Answer 1

I just tested a couple paths using Excel 2013 on on Windows 7. I found the overall pathname limit to be 213 and the basename length to be 186. At least the error dialog for exceeding basename length is clear:

And trying to move a not-too-long basename to a too-long-pathname is also very clear:

The pathname error is deceptive, though. Quite unhelpful:

This is a lazy Microsoft restriction. There's no good reason for these arbitrary length limits, but in the end, it’s a real bug in the error dialog.