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

[Eli Zaretskii]

On 12 Jun 2002, Andre Spiegel wrote:

> >     (case-fold-search (not (memq system-type '(ms-dos windows-nt))))
> 
> I hesitate to install this.  Wouldn't it be a cleaner solution if Emacs
> always used the real filenames internally, and not a down-cased
> version?

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

> 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.

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

Yes, it's guaranteed.

> 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.

> 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.

> Or,
> alternatively, aren't there other architectures (e.g. VMS) where
> filenames are case-insensitive as well?

VMS is another case, yes.

> 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.

A better solution is to fix all the programs out there which futz with 
letter-case in file names, but that doesn't sound like a practical way.