Subject: Re: Alternate Mixed Case scheme?
From: [email-masked] (Guy Gascoigne - Piggford)

2 Feb 1998 15:33:33 -0800
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To: <[email-masked]>

At 01:36 PM 2/2/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, my propsed fix doesn't change file creation at all; just what you see
>when you do an "ls", or when bash or gfind or other utility is trying to
>match a filename.
>
>If you explicitly create a file named "README", then it'll still be in all
>caps in NT.  If you then do an "ls" in the directory, you'll get "readme",
>but the underlying file is still in all caps.
>
>If you have  code that rewrites a filename (i.e. performs some operation on
>the file, deletes the old one, and moves the new one to the old name), or
>if you use "tar" or other cygwin utility to move files around, then the
>mixed case will be lost.  But that's why I suggest making it an option on
>mount so you could have a directory tree that is mixed case if you care.
>
>In the meantime, I've hacked the one liner to downcase everything, and it
>appears to be working fine so far.  I'll add the mods to mount later
>(default turned off), if anyone seems interested.

Well maybe it just won't work for me then.

I also use Clearcase, it is very fussy about case since it ignores the
NTness of it's platform (being very half-assed UNIX port) so if a file is
checked in with mixed-case filenames, then unless you use the mixed-case
filename it will fail to find them - very annoying.  This would be even
more annoying if the existance of these mixed case filenames is hidden by
the other tools I use.

I must admit I can see why you like the solution you propose - if it suits
your needs then it does provide a very stright forward and consistent fix
to an otherwise awkward situation.  I just don't think that it will work
for me, and I suspect that there may be others in the same boat.

It will also cause problems for people maintaining UNIX source on NT, who
then nees to get it working again under UNIX.  All those references to
makefile having to be switched back to Makefile etc.

I much prefer the idea of changing glob so that it is case insensitive, and
bash so that it's file name completion is case insensitive.  Both based
upon an environment or registry value, of course.  I've kind of hacked my
environment to do this, and I know that there have been other posts to the
list suggesting similar things.

It would be nice to get a consensus about this so that b19 could have some
fix included, but when I mailed Geoff about how to get a fix included, my
mail must have hit a bit bucket somewhere and I forgot to follow up on it.

Guy

-- 
Guy Gascoigne - Piggford ([email-masked])
Software Engineer, Informix Software, Inc. (Portland, Oregon)

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