Subject: Re: Alternate Mixed Case scheme?
From: [email-masked] ($Bill Luebkert)

2 Feb 1998 22:34:51 -0800
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
To: [email-masked]

Guy Gascoigne - Piggford wrote:
> 
> 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.

I don't like the mount idea, I would prefer an env vrbl that would ignore case 
for file listing/opening but not for creating.  The underlying code could 
check the vrbl to see which matching to do (case sensitive or not).

tcsh uses 'set complete=enhance' in the shell to handle this, but "set" 
doesn't export, so 'setenv IGNORECASE 1' or some such would be better.

I personally don't like the text/binary mount options and would prefer a 
different solution (preferably on a file-by-file basis - magic numbers in 
file header, etc.).

-- 
  ,-/-  __      _  _         $Bill Luebkert
 (_/   /  )    // //       DBE Collectibles
  / ) /--<  o // //      http://www.wgn.net/~dbe/
-/-' /___/_<_</_</_    Mailto:[email-masked]
-
For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
"[email-masked]" with one line of text: "help".