Re: [PATCH] Demonstrate failure of 'core.ignorecase = true'

From: Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek <zbyszek@in.waw.pl>
Date: Mar 22, 2012, 20:00 UTC
Message-ID: <4F6B84DF.8040806@in.waw.pl>
In-Reply-To: <7viphwxyp1.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On 03/22/2012 07:44 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Jeff King<peff@peff.net>  writes:
>
>> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 09:57:23AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>
>>> Hrm, replacing unclear part with clarified text may make sense, but it
>>> would not help adding new text if the existing description is not clear
>>> enough.
>>>
>>> How about doing it like this?
>>>
>>>     Case-insensitive filesystems like FAT and HFS+ have various strange
>>>     behaviours, like reporting that a file "Makefile" already exists when
>>>     the file that actually exists on them is "makefile". By setting this
>>>     variable to `true`, Git employs logic to work around them.

I think that this paragraph is too judgemental. While case-insensitive filesystems may be a pain, they are not "strange" to their users, but rather natural, and don't require "working around".

Show 7 quoted lines

> I guess we really need to make the description foolproof then.
>
>                     ... exists on them is "makefile". By setting this
> 	variable to `true`, Git employs logic to work around them.
>          Setting this to `true` on a case insensitive filesystem does
> 	not make any sense, because it would not magically make your
> 	system to treat your filesystem case insensitively.

Even this updated text does not say _what_ happens when core.ignorecase is set on a case-insensitive filesystem. Once that's cleared up, then the corner case of core.ignorecase=true on case-sensitive fs can be tackled.

Maybe: --- 8< --- When set, case-insensitive comparisons will be used when internally comparing file names.

The default is false, but when a new repository is created by git-clone[1] or git-init[1], git will probe the filesystem and set it to `true` if the filesystem is case-insensitive.

On case-insensitive filesystems like FAT, NTFS and HSF+, names that differ only in capitalization, like "Makefile" and "makefile", refer to the same file. While such filesystems usually preserve the capitalization used during file creation, tools designed for such filesystems will often modify capitalization when saving files and when displaying filenames. Enabling core.ignorecase causes git to ignore case-only differences in file names.

Enabling core.ignorecase on a case insensitive filesystem does not make sense, because filenames with different capitalization will still be treated as different by the filesystem. --- >8 ---

[+cc Brandon Casey]

zByszek