Re: [h-e-w] Re: Case-sensitivity of filenames under NT, in VC

[Dr Francis J. Wright]

From: "Eli Zaretskii" <address@hidden>
To: "Andre Spiegel" <address@hidden>
Cc: "Jeff Rancier" <address@hidden>; "Emacs Help (Windows)"
<address@hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 1:36 PM
Subject: [h-e-w] Re: Case-sensitivity of filenames under NT, in VC


> I believe Emacs should treat file names as the underlying filesystem
> does.

I thought it did, unless w32-downcase-file-names is set; by default it is
unset.

> > What is the rationale for that?
>
> Evidently, some Windows tools (the ftp client, in this case) have a
> misfeature whereby they change the letter-case of the file names when
> they copy the files.

Most standard Windows programs ignore case in file names, but the MS ftp
client doesn't change case.

> > If this can't be avoided, then is it always guaranteed that filenames
> > are case-insensitive under DOS/NT?
>
> Yes, it's guaranteed.

I thought that MS filesystems preserve case, and it's up to an application
whether or not it ignores it.  MS applications usually ignore case; ports
from UNIX usually respect case.

> > Couldn't you "mount" a Unix
> > filesystem and have case-sensitive filenames there?
>
> I'm not aware of such a mount command.  I think it cannot exist, since it
> will break many Windows programs.

I haven't done this recently, but IIRC if you mount a UNIX filesystem using
Samba then it depends on the application whether or not it respects filename
case, just as for a local filesystem.

> > What if DOS/NT
> > changes so that filenames become case-sensitive there, too?
>
> I don't think this is a real danger.  Too many things on Windows depend
> on case-insensitivity.

I agree.  But presumably applications will always be able to ignore filename
case if they want.

> > To sum up, the above solution looks like a hack to me and I'd rather
> > look for something cleaner.
>
> I don't think it's a hack: Windows doesn't treat the letter-case in file
> names as significant.  It is IMHO a bug in Emacs that it compares file
> names case-sensitively on Windows.

I think you might have contradicted yourself here.  If you really mean that
then doesn't setting w32-downcase-file-names fix this "bug"?  And if you
mean the opposite, then I thought that was what happened; otherwise, it's
not clear what w32-downcase-file-names is for.

Francis