Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: tla1.2 on cygwin

[David Brown]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2004 at 09:44:29PM -0800, Tom Lord wrote:

> I don't understand what the subdir structure has to do with case
> sensitivity.   Can you explain?
> 
> _If_ you are correct that case issues effect many (I've only ever
> heard you complain) -- there are sane ways to handle that (i.e., with
> a VU namespace handler).

I believe I have complained as well :-)  Well, not exactly complained,
but pointed-out.  I did this after managing to break an archive.  The
change was trying to rename the file, only changing case.

> How do you cope with #include, btw?   And, what does tar do?

There are two primary case-preserving, case-insensitive filesystems in
the world, Windows (FAT or NTFS), and MacOS (HFS, HFS+).

When trying to open a file, the case is ignored.  When creating, it is
preserved in the name.  Generally, utilities don't even have to be
aware of this (tar isn't, for example).  Most of the time, it doesn't
matter.  It only matters if you try to create a new entry that differs
only in case.  On these systems, it will replace or overwrite the old
entry.  For directories (the subdir structure), the two versions will be
smashed together into one entry, and won't be searchable on a
case-sensitive system.

The only difference between the two is the rename call.  MacOS considers
this valid ('foo' can be renamed to 'Foo'), whereas Windows considers
this an error.

Personally, I think a case-insensitive filesystem is stupid (think
Unicode).  But, the two largest OS vendors ship with them, and I think
we're stuck with them for a while.

Dave