Concerning RE: Change case on a filename in wc
Rusk, Patrick wrote on 18 Dec 2003, 17:21, at least in part:
> > This isn't enough. The problem is that e.g. NTFS maintains case,
> > but does not enforce it (how stupid can you get?). So even if you
> > change the case on the server via direct URL edits, the WC file will
> > not change case unless you actually delete the file and check it out
> > again.
> >
> > For evidence of this, try and use either File Explorer or a command
> > prompt and try and rename a file to a different case...
>
> FWIW, changing the case on a rename worked from both Windows Explorer
> and the command prompt under Windows 2000, and I'm quite sure it does
> under Windows XP.
>
> I'm also pretty sure it *didn't* work so easily on earlier versions of
> Windows, though I don't know how far back you have to go, or whether
> it's an NTFS vs. FAT32 vs. FAT thing.
Thanks, Pat, for doing the testing! AFAIR it was possible on
FAT(32?) under Win95B, too, at least in WinExplorer, with the only
exception of the first character. That is, if changed from lower to
upper case WinEx a least showed it correctly, but vice versa not.
Dunno if under the hood change of the first letter's case was
preserved.
> As far as being stupid, it's a very easy argument to make and defend
> that it's aesthetically pleasing to preserve mixed case, but more
> friendly to users to not require it. After all, only people asking
> for trouble put two files with the same names and only case
> differences in the same directory. Can you say you've never had the
> frustration of typing the wrong case at a Unix prompt? I certainly
> did in my Unix years.
Not having any Unix experience, but I can only support this.
Different case is quite fine for legibility in file manager, but horror
when typing in open file dialogs. Homesite, e.g., has a setting to
lowercase all anchor tags etc. automatically, so together with FTP
set to change filenames to lowercase, too, things are OK after
upload to the Unix server. However, Homesite has a bug with the
image tag where it does not change the case to lower ...
But given that this thing causes trouble again and again, and that
in any environment with both Unix and Windows users there must
be a naming convention anyway:
What about adding an option with svn create like --lowercase? To
avoid/reduce possible dataloss on case-sensitive systems SVN
would still save cases as given (or could the working copy enforce
lowercase on saving?), but update, checkout etc. would ship
lowercase. And Windows users should get a meaningful warning if
there are two files same name, different case.
Jan Hendrik
---------------------------------------
Freedom quote:
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough;
we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
-- Ronald Reagan,
Address to National Association of Realtors,
March 28, 1982
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Received on Fri Dec 19 13:31:13 2003