[fpc-pascal] FPC with case insensitive file system under Linux

[Mattias Gaertner]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:09:09 +0200
Graeme Geldenhuys <graemeg.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> [rant]
> I'm just sick of the idiocy of Linux/Unix with there case sensitive
> file systems! Google'ing a round for the reason for this, it seems
> that in the 60's, it was C programmers that decided that searching for
> case sensitive files was easier to implement (and marginally faster).
> Well, 40+ years later, that is totally irrelevant - yet we are still
> suck (by default) with case sensitive file systems. Mac OS X, Windows
> and OS/2 proves that there is no problems with case insensitive file
> systems, even for various locales. It also makes it MUCH easier for
> the end-user. I see no reason why Linux must still be stuck with this.
> Anyway, that is why I am busy reformatting all my JFS file systems (I
> have long ago standardised on JFS) with the -O option to make them
> case insensitive.
> [/rant]

The whole last week I cursed the opposite direction (first windows, then OS X).
It seems it depends on the current task.

 
> Anyway, back to the point.... I seriously doubt there would be any
> problems, but I'll ask anyway. Has anybody here used JFS (case
> insensitive option enabled) with FPC and experienced any problems? I
> doubt there would be, because Mac OS X by default is case insensitive
> too - and it is also a *nix system.

Linux can handle both. But many Linux tools only support case sensitive
files.

 
> In the same breath, any possible Lazarus issues?

Lazarus expects by default case sensitive file names under Linux.
OTOH it tries to find the real file name at various places so it can
find more units than the compiler. For example sources copied from
Windows. 
The Delphi converter fixes uses and includes.
Some users are using Lazarus with samba shares and ntfs mounts.

You can get similar problems when copying code from Windows to OS X,
because OS X is not only case insensitive, it normalizes UTF
characters.

 
> PS:
> Anybody know of other Linux file systems that have a case insensitive
> option? I really thought ext2 had this, but searching now through the
> man pages, it seems I was mistaken. Anybody know if Btrfs would have
> such an option?

Wikipedia has various tables comparing file systems.

My recommendation: If you have the choice, use the OS defaults.
Many programs will fail otherwise.

Mattias