You need case folding just to do the comparison, even with a linear
search, if you define your system as case insensitive.
> > Just goes to show just
> > how bad an idea case folding is.
> >
> > Case insensitivity is specifically prohibited by Posix.
>
> NTFS is a POSIX filesystem and does support case-sensitive files.
> Filenames that differ only by case must be next to each other so
> that the Windows API (not case-sensitive) can find files.
> Without that ordering, NT would have to scan the directory like
> it does for FAT. Think of WINE and ext2: the whole directory must
> be scanned because we don't sort files in the right way.
>
> Case insensitivity is good from the viewpoint of lazy software
> developers. Normal users often complain about Linux being
> case-sensitive. In fact, they see it as an annoying bug.
>
> IMHO it ought to be controlled by a directory attribute.
IMNSHO it is junk that doesn't belong in the filesystem. It suddenly
means dragging in a whole character-system where it doesn't belong,
although I have to say putting it inside the filesystem as opposed to
the kernel automagically needing to figure it out would definitely be
the lesser of two evils.
-hpa
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