upper/lowercase with vfat issues

Nerijus (nerijus@sat.lt)
Fri, 3 Dec 1999 00:29:58 +0200


Hello,

there were some complaints about linux not handling upper/lowercase
filenames in vfat correctly (they are below). So I did some investigation.
I created following directories (or files, it does not matter):

in Linux: LINUP, linlow
in win98: 98UP, 98low
in NT4: NTUP, ntlow
in W2k: W2KUP, w2klow

Now what ls/dir shows:

in Linux: LINUP, linlow, 98up, 98low, ntup, ntlow, w2kup, w2klow
in win98: LINUP, LINLOW, 98UP, 98low, NTUP, NTLOW, W2KUP, W2KLOW
in NT4: LINUP, linlow, 98UP, 98low, NTUP, ntlow, W2KUP, w2klow
in W2K: LINUP, linlow, 98UP, 98low, NTUP, ntlow, W2KUP, w2klow

So I would suggest NT/W2K shows everything correctly (if we can call so,
because microsoft mixed everything up), and win98/Linux shows differently
in opposite directions. I think Linux should follow one of win95/98 or NT/W2K,
and since NT/W2K seams more reasonable, Linux could display filenames
like NT (Linux creates filenames similar to NT already).

There is no such problem with mixed up/low or with filenames
containing more than 8 characters.

> First annoying thing that happens to me quite often ( can't swear
> it is 100% all the time ) is creation of directiories under linux
> and working with them under windows. When I create directory
> 'test' for example ( in lowercase ), I see it as 'TEST' in uppercase
> in windoze... Linux 'TEST' was 'test' in windows again... simply..
> mismatched case... However, 'Test' produces what is expected.

>Yes, I have already heard about this, but never used such a option. This
>one really makes me angry since I am using CVS. Trying to work on
>the project both under Linux & Win gives me headaches... especially
>when filenames come with cases I don't expect... The way I go around
>this is to bzip&tar the CVS tree under Linux and unbzip it under Win and
>vice versa... really annoying.

> I noticed this too. Under Windows, a file called TEST shows up under
> Linux as test. The C:\WINDOWS directory shows up as /dos/windows in
> Linux. Also, if I create "TEST" under Linux, it shows up as "test"
> under windows.
>
> This must be a problem. When I run FreeBSD, I can see C:\WINDOWS as
> /dos/WINDOWS and not /dos/windows like Linux is doing. Also, I'm pretty
> sure if I create /dos/TEST under FreeBSD, it will show up as C:\TEST
> under windows. So, Linux' vfat code must be broken. Either that, or
> it's interpreting case wrong.

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