Re: ambiguous file name, due to case insensitivity

[Derek Robert Price]

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Steve wrote:

| I am using cvs from the command line, with cvs client version 1.11, on
Windows NT.


Your CVS server is 1.11.6 or higher too, or you wouldn't be seeing this
problem.  Running the command `cvs version' should report the version of
the CVS server you are talking to with a client/server CVSROOT.

| Unfortunately, it seem that I have two files with similar names:
| contactinfo.gif
| contactInfo.gif
| The names only differ in the capitalization of the letter "I".
|  
| On unix, I don't have any problem using cvs.


That's because your UNIX CVS client is using a case-sensitive filesystem.

| However, on my PC Windows client, I cannot do a checkout or update,
since I get this message
| when I attempt to update the track:
|
| cvs update
| cvs server: Updating .
| cvs [server aborted]: contactInfo.gif,v is ambiguous; could mean
contactinfo.gif,v or contactInfo.gif,v


The fact that this is happenening on update is a bug that should be
fixed, I'm not sure whether in the client or the server.  The client is
supposed to preserve the server's case for the file in the CVS/Entries
file and send it back to the server.  Either the client needs to be
fixed to preserve it properly or, more likely, the server needs to be
fixed to use it properly.  With any luck this fix will be in the 1.11.9
release.

The problem with checkout, we aren't defining as a bug yet.  If CVS
found two files to check out and your client will not know how to tell
the difference between them due to their filename, then it doesn't know
what to do.  With any luck, this will be fixed on the feature branch
within a release or two.  I just sent an RFC to the list about how to do
this.  It involves filtering the list of archive files retrieved based
on the command being run and the options passed to it and the change
will be very comprehensive and invasive.

| In an attempt to "fix" this, I have removed the file contactinfo.gif,
by doing the following
| on a unix machine where the same branch is checked out:
|  
| rm contactinfo.gif
| cvs remove contactinfo.gif
| cvs commit -m "removing file" contactinfo.gif
|  
| However, this has not corrected the problem. I still cannot checkout
the track or do an update on
| my Windows PC.


Unfortunately, until the new releases come out, you only have a few
options for dealing with this: back your server version up to something
pre 1.11.6, which will lose many bug fixes, several of which were
security-releated; or rename or move one of the RCS archive files
(`contactinfo.c,v') within the repository (for instance, rename the
version not on the trunk to `contactinfo.old.c,v'), both of which might
break old releases.

Derek

- --
~                *8^)

Email: derek@ximbiot.com

Get CVS support at <http://ximbiot.com>!
- --
HAMLET                  No, not I.
~  I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
~  My honoured lord, you know right well you did,
~  And with them words of so sweet breath composed
~  As made the things more rich.  Their perfume lost,
~  Take these again.  For to the noble mind
~  Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
~  There, my lord.

~     - Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, Lines 96-102
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