file name case issue on fat32 (Was: Re: Sharing data files on a dual-boot machine ...)

martinko martinkov at pobox.sk
Tue Sep 27 06:30:08 PDT 2005


Alex Zbyslaw wrote:
> martinko wrote:
> 
>> Dmitry Mityugov wrote:
>>
>>> On 9/27/05, martinko <martinkov at pobox.sk> wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> hello,
>>>>
>>>> when i mount a fat32 partition some files have different case (see
>>>> below) then in windows. how come ??
>>>>
>>>> e.g.:
>>>>
>>>> $ ll
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel    734 Mar  1  2005 a.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel    649 Mar 16  2003 A.txt~
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   1110 Mar 27  2003 b.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   2980 Jun  6 23:46 c.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   2475 Mar  1  2005 C.txt~
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   2563 Jun 10 12:49 d.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   2561 Jun 10 12:42 D.txt~
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel   1015 Jun  7 00:25 e.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel    681 Mar 16  2003 E.txt~
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel    602 Mar 16  2003 f.txt
>>>> -rwxr-x---  1 root  wheel    421 Mar 16  2003 g.txt
>>>>
>>>> in windows all the files above have first letter in uppercase, that is
>>>> "A.txt" for instance.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> sorry if i didn't make myself clear. -- ALL the file names above 
>> should have their first letter, and only the first letter, in upper 
>> case. that's how they were named in windows. but as you can see above, 
>> freebsd does not show them properly as some of them are shown in 
>> lowercase (e.g. "a.txt" instead of "A.txt").
>>
>> why??
> 
> 
> Because FAT32 is a case-insensitive file system.  Don't confuse how 
> Windows explorer shows you the file name with how the file name is 
> actually stored on the file system.
> 
> --Alex
> 

ok. unfortunately i forgot most of my knowledge from the old days of 
ms-dos but what i can say even without it is this -- it's not about 
windows explorer only. i can see the correct file names in all 
applications (under windows of course), i believe. and if windows knows 
whether there should be an "A" or "a" then why freebsd cannot?

martin

ps: and, btw, how freebsd knows there's a capital A in "A.txt~" ? 
because it's stored on the filesystem in that way, i guess. being 
case-insensitive doesn't (necessarily)  mean a FS doesn't keep a case, imho.



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