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

Alex Zbyslaw xfb52 at dial.pipex.com
Tue Sep 27 06:58:26 PDT 2005


martinko wrote:

> 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?
>
Windows does not care whether you refer to a file called "abc.txt" as 
"Abc.txt" or "ABC.txt" or "abc.TXT", they are all the same.  There is no 
"correct" file name as far as windows or ms-dos is concerned.  Open up a 
dos command line window and try:
    type a.txt

and

    type A.TXT

and they should both work.

File systems on Unix are case-sensitive, notwithstanding how Windows 
behaves.  Yes, this is a pain.

--Alex



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