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Message-ID: <3B7333D6.44112D94@usq.edu.au>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 01:07:34 +0000
From: Ron House <house AT usq DOT edu DOT au>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Upper/lower case filenames.
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Jonadab the Unsightly One wrote:
> 
> # Having just tried Cygwin, I notice that 8.3 filenames which are taken to
> # be lower case under Linux are taken as upper case under Cygwin.
> 
> 8.3 filenames on FAT filesystems don't *have* case.  They are
> case insensitive.  If you want case-sensitive filenames on a
> FAT fs, you have to use LFNs (vfat).  (Even then, relying on
> case on a FAT fs is risky if Windows has access to the
> filesystem; the case may be changed, usually to Mixedcase.)

I don't want case-sensitive filenames, I just want Cygwin to see the
names as having the same case that Linux sees them with. That way,
makefiles etc. won't need drastic changes between systems. It is
precisely because the 8.3 filenames mess up case, as you say, that the
option even arises for a system to 'see' them in two different ways.

> # means that scripts such as "cp *.cpp ..." and makefiles don't work
> # unless edited. Is there any reason for this design choice?
> 
> Ick, that seems very bad.  Is this really true?  OTOH, it
> would be just as bad if uppercase didn't work.  Perhaps
> such lossage is an unavoidable consequence of shells being
> designed to deal only with case-sensitive filesystems?  Is
> bash really that narrow-minded?

That's an interesting thought - that the fault, dear Brutus, is in bash,
not in our Cygwin.

-- 
Ron House     house AT usq DOT edu DOT au
              http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/staff/house

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