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

[Jürgen Hestermann]

Graeme Geldenhuys schrieb:
 > On 24 February 2012 16:13, Henry Vermaak wrote:
 >> Because case sensitive systems don't create as much confusion.
 > Here my thoughts are the opposite. While backing up my data no an
 > external drive with is case insensitive I came across a lot of
 > possible issues I never realised I had on my case sensitive Linux file
 > system.
 > eg:
 >   In one source code directory I had files as follows:
 >        tiDefines.inc
 >        tidefines.inc
 > Backing this up to a case insensitive file system, I program prompted
 > me that the origin file was going to be replaced? So, looking at those
 > files on my Linux (case sensitive) file system, which one is actually
 > the latest version? To find out, I had to fire up Beyond Compare and
 > to a content comparison.
 > This actually happened quite a few times with many of my source code.
 > This all probably got introduced when I moved source code over from
 > Windows to Linux some 6 years ago.
 > Confusing now? Definitely! Did Linux warn me, nope. Does the compiler
 > know which one to actually use - no idea. How does Lazarus know which
 > one to open (because Lazarus searches for multiple case files) - no
 > idea?
 > Then lets look at it from an average user's point of view. Must they
 > really be confronted with multiple files in a single folder named:
 >    test.txt
 >    Test.txt
 >    Test.Txt
 >    TEST.TXT
 >    test.TXT
 >    ....
 > All the user wants to do, is open a "test dot t x t" file. Under Linux
 > they could be confronted with multiple versions? Very confusing.
 > I like to CamelCase my file names - it makes them easier to read in a
 > file listing. But when I reference them in say a search dialog, I'll
 > probably type them in all lowercase for speed reason. I would still
 > like Linux to find that file though - but it wouldn't.
 > As I, and it seems many others on the Internet, have found - there
 > really isn't a good reason why Linux must still use case sensitive
 > file systems. Windows supports multiple locales and has 95% of the
 > computer market - it doesn't have case sensitive file systems. Mac OS
 > X by default doesn't either (though they are nice enough to give you
 > the choice). I think Linux should give you the choice too.
 >
 >
 > Anyway, hopefully my newly formatted JFS partitions will sort this out.
 >>  At the end of the day, a computer thinks that "a" is 97 and "A" is 
65, but
 >> what humans perceive is more complicated.
 > And a computer should serve a human, not the other way round.  Read
 > the excellent book "About Face 3".


I wholeheartly agree with you on case sensitive file names. It's a crap.
I never understood why they created such a nonsense.
And now generations of Linux users have to suffer from it.
For me it's one of the last obstacles on the way to Linux.