Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 16:45:26 +1200
From: physmsa AT cantua DOT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz (Mr M S Aitchison)
Subject: cAsE sensitivity
To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Message-id: <199705070445.QAA10665@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>
Precedence: bulk


Some people are very sensitive about case-sensitivity!

I think:

a. The file system should be capable of storing long filenames with
   whatever case you throw at it.

b. Your programs should be able to work in three modes: one like the
   present system where everything seems to be upper-case (and 8+3,
   for maximum DOS compatibility).  Another where trying to open a
   file called "Makefile" when only "MAKEFILE and "makefile" exist
   fails (for maximum Unix compatibility - yuk!), plus a third mode
   where it tries to do what seems sensible. The last mode should
   be the default, so programs find a file no matter what the case is
   of the actual file on disk or what was asked for. The traditional 
   findfirst/findnext calls would return uppercase in all situations
   while the new (MS) calls would return mixed case.

c. Having filenames that differ only in case is really stupid.

d. Some applications can do sensible things, e.g. unzip looks for
   filename.zip then filename.ZIP; tcsh auto-corrects commands with
   the "wrong" case; pkunzip asks "do you wish to rename, overwrite
   (etc) when a second file of the same (monocase) name is found, or
   a lfn/case-sensitive version creates both names.

e. Ideally, a filesystem should store the preferred/generated short
   filename as the nickname, for use in icon labels, etc where space
   is short.

f. Of course FAT directories can have lower case already (just that
   the system fights this like mad). The question of case comes up even
   without long filenames/VFAT in the picture.  It is always a question
   of what legacy software will break when you take away restrictions
   (hence the need for an over-riding "force CAPITALS" option).

Mark.