Subject: Re: case insensitive inode number patch, is this better?
From: [email-masked] (Jim Balter)

10 Jan 1997 18:58:48 -0800
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Original-To: Scott Kempf <[email-masked]>
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Scott Kempf wrote:
> 
> Here is a questionable patch.  Win95 doesn't have any inode numbers,
> so they are faked using a hash of the file's name.  This is very
> creative, but not the best idea.  I don't have a better solution,
> but it seems to me that the hash should not be case sensitive,
> since the file system isn't.  This patch makes the inodes case
> insensitive.  I'm not aware of any problem it fixes,

I am; cp x X will now complain instead of leaving x (X) as an empty
file.  There are other programs that check for file identity that would
likewise benefit.  *Obviously* different names for the same file
should produce the same inode number.

> but it does
> create one:  "mv x X" now fails with "mv: `x' and `X' are the same file".
> Since they are the same file, the error is somewhat reasonable.

This is mv's fault for being too restrictive.  It should trust the
rename systenm call, the cygwin version of which should do the
rename properly.  In any case, mv without the patch doesn't complain
but it doesn't do the rename, either!

> Any ideas?

Better to make inode numbers 1-1 with files than to worry about
the mv case.

--
<J Q B>
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