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

[Alex Zbyslaw]

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