Case sensitive file names

[Guest Moderator, John B. Chambers]

>From davest%tektronix.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA Fri Oct  3 14:04:03 1986
Message-Id: <8610031825.AA25406 at tektronix.TEK>
To: std-unix at SALLY.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject: Re: Case sensitive file names
Newsgroups: mod.std.unix
In-Reply-To: <5860 at ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Date: 03 Oct 86 11:25:11 PDT (Fri)
From: "David C. Stewart" <davest%tektronix.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Source-Info:  From (or Sender) name not authenticated.

In article <5860 at ut-sally.UUCP> Mark Horton <mark at cbosgd.att.com> writes:
>It's also reasonable to leave the case alone, but ignore case in
>comparisons.  There is also probably a good argument for keeping
>it case sensitive (after all, there are probably 5 or 6 people out
>there who really need both makefile and Makefile, or both mail and
>Mail, for some reason that escapes me at the moment.)

	I can think of one well-used exception right away: make(1), as it
works now, will look for rules in `makefile' first, and if `Makefile'
exists in the same directory, it will not be used by make.  On the
other hand, Glenn Fowler's Fourth Generation Make [1] chooses the
opposite order of accepting default rules files, ie, it tries
`Makefile' first and, if one does not exist, it tries `makefile'.
It is claimed that this is a feature, rather than an annoyance since
Fourth Generation makefiles are incompatable with old-style makefiles.
Thus, one can maintain the old make makefile in `makefile' and the new make
makefile in `Makefile'.

	This may just be picking nits, but I think the point is that
case sensitivity in the file system is a Unix feature, like it or
not.  There may be other applications that depend on case-sensitive
file names that would become non-portable.

[1] Fowler, Glenn S., "The Fourth Generation Make", Proceedings of the
Usenix Association Summer Conference, Portland, OR, 1985.  (Note that
the actual release of nmake in the AT&T Toolchest differs in this
respect with the function described in this paper.)

--
David C. Stewart                          uucp:    tektronix!davest
Unix Systems Support Group                csnet:   davest at TEKTRONIX
Tektronix, Inc.                           phone:   (503) 627-5418

Volume-Number: Volume 7, Number 15