Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 20:52:37 +0300
From: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: bdeck AT lycos DOT co DOT uk
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In-reply-to: <3efc1417$0$29013$9b622d9e@news.freenet.de> (bdeck@lycos.co.uk)
Subject: Re: dirent->d_name returns lowercase?
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> From: "deckerben" <bdeck AT lycos DOT co DOT uk>
> Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
> Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 11:59:14 +0200
> 
> > > "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz AT elta DOT co DOT il> wrote in message
> > > news:2593-Wed25Jun2003075056+0300-eliz AT elta DOT co DOT il...
> > > > > From: "deckerben" <bdeck AT lycos DOT co DOT uk>
> > > > > Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
> > > > > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 23:34:01 +0200
> > > > This is not the default because in most situations the behavior you
> > > > see now is what users want, especially if they have files that come
> > > > from DOS (where _all_ directory entries are in UPPERCASE).
> > > I really understand the DOS issue. But this would not be true under NT
> > > systems, where true filename cases are reported correctly.
> > I meant DOS filenames under Windows, not under DOS.  So your case is
> > included.
> 
> This is just wrong. NT returns filename case correctly, from both the CMD
> and COMMAND prompts.

Really?  What does NT do with floppies written on plain DOS systems?

You see, one of the reasons DJGPP downcases 8+3 file names is that
many users (used to) upgrade from DOS to Windows, so their disks were
full of 8+3 file names created under DOS.  That is the case I were
referring to, and which you seem to misunderstand.

Also, DJGPP programs don't call NT system calls directly, they do so
via an emulation layer (as you probably know), called NTVDM.  NTVDM is
a DOS emulator, so it upcases file names when it passes them to DOS
system calls it emulates.

> I have yet to see NT return a directory list in all upper-case.

Try a floppy written under DOS.  If NT returns lower-case letters
there, it simply lies to you, as all DOS directory entries are in
upper case.

Note that we are talking about file names returned by system calls,
not what you see when you type "DIR" at the shell's prompt.

> I would consider it wrong to disable a capability provided by the OS
> because of an intentional limitation of the programming tools.

That's not the point.  The point is that Windows has a
case-insensitive filesystem, so making it case-sensitive (by setting
FNCASE=y) is not recommended, since the side effects will generally
surprise Windows users.

> No, strange behavior is when I do an 'ls' to see everything just as 'dir'
> reports, except that all uppercase files are now lowercase. That's strange.

That's because your DIR command goes to the shell which is a Windows
program, as opposed to DJGPP programs which are DOS programs.  You
really should keep that in mind when you argue about these subtleties.