Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!unido!rwthinf!cip-s02!wolfram From: wolfram@cip-s02.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Wolfram Roesler) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: case insensitivity in TOS Message-ID: Date: 1 Feb 91 10:15:56 GMT References: <1991Jan12.023029.20022@convex.com> <7340070@hpfcso.HP.COM> Sender: news@rwthinf.UUCP Lines: 36 mjs@hpfcso.HP.COM (Marc Sabatella) writes: >Well, some applications, upon finding the feature, might insist on using it, >and not leaving it up to the user. Someone might write an application that >creates internal data files named "foo" and "FoO" and requires them to be >distinct. In addition, many programs convert all filenames to lowercase before presenting them to the user (especially command shells)(the Okami Shell leaves the decision whether or not to convert to lowercase to the user). In this case, "foo" and "foO" would turn into the same filename. But do you really plan to use filenames that differ only in their cases? New programs would certainly not rely on filenames being case indepentant in order to stay compatible. So they will certainly not trust in foo and foO being different files. Using files that differ only in their case would be discouraged on an OS with optional case insensitivity anyway because turning the feature off would suddenly make a lot of files have the same name. As for myself, I dont really miss case insensitive filenames, I'd rather see a Unix filename convention that doesnt force filenames to the filename.ext con- vention. How about the difficulty of implementing that? In the disk directory, the filename "foo.bar" is written "foo bar", and programs (like Fsfirst) replace the spaces by a singe dot. If the directory entry was "foo.bar.baz", it should be possible to recognize that this is not a standard TOS filename, so an OS extension should be able to handle filenames in both MSDOS and Unix convention. Back to the case insentivities, there is however one advantage given by filenames being not case sensitive: if you are using a command shell which has, say, an internal command named "test" (it will have if it resembles the Bourne Shell) (guess which Shell does?) and you have a program called test.prg, then typing "test" on the command line will invoke the internal command, so you have to run test.prg by typing c:/bin/test.prg or something if filenames are case sensitive, but if they are not, you can simply type "Test" to invoke the external command (which is I suppose a lot easier to type even for people who do not like to use the shift key.)