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Re: filesystems

On Mon, 18 May 1998 15:28:00 -0400, Martin-Eric Racine wrote:

MR>Problem:
MR>
MR>   TOSFS is uppercase by default, so software written for Atari
MR>   assumes uppercase filenames, especially when reading files.
MR>   This is usually true of older ST software.

This is not neccesarily true. I would not be surprised if more than 50%
of all ST software would use lowercase filenames, simply because it
doesn't matter if you say "file.rsc" or "FILE.RSC" - both files are
found on TOS fs and "file.rsc" is easier to type (see below).

MR>   Perhaps a way to solve this would be alter the Pdomain() rule:
MR>
MR>      TOS -> case-sensitive:  maintain uppercase
MR>      case-sensitive -> TOS:  transform to uppercase

I strongly disagree. Insensitive -> sensitive does lowercase conversion
since ages, and it's correct. The whole system and all utilities (except
desktop and its replacements) show filenames on insensitive filesystems
as lowercase and so it's logical to copy them as lowercase on case
sensitive fs. Look with Freedom at C:, or use 'ls /c/' in bash. IMHO
it's quite OK to show all case insensitive filenames in lowercase as
lowercase characters are the 'normal' state of keyboard. You type
uppercase only when you hold down the Shift key - so the (file)name is
then somehow special, more complicated to write and so more rare. These
are my own thoughts, perhaps there's a better reason why the filenames
on TOS fs are shown in lowercase.

BTW, this problems is very similar to that problem with CD-ROM I
described here some weeks ago. I asked there the SPIN's author to return
all filenames from case insensitive CD-ROMs in lowercase, so it would be
'compatible' with the rest of operating system.

Petr
--
E-mail: stehlik@cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz                        PARCP developer
   WWW: http://cas3.zlin.vutbr.cz/~stehlik/              MiNTOS/Linux user
mirror: http://users.zln.cz/~pstehlik/                 Atari 800XL emulation
mirror: http://www.stehlik.cyberstrider.org/              Atari Falcon040