David Masover wrote:



Hans Reiser wrote:
| David Masover wrote:
|
|> Hans Reiser wrote:
|> [...]
|> |
|> |>
|> |> To start with, ntfs read access is still case insensitive, last I
|> |> checked. How deep does that go?
|> |
|> |
|> | In reiser4, it is just a directory plugin.
|>
|> Nono -- how do you give Windows, which is case insensitive, access to a
|> case-sensitive filesystem? For instance, how do you get a Windows-based
|> backup program to back up a reiser4 partition from a Linux installation,
|> if it has filenames that are identical except for case?
|
|
| This problem is insoluble. Either make reiser4 case insensitive and use
| it that way or educate the windows programs or live with bugs. I see no
| alternative. Do you?


Mangling.  Or case-sensitivity (forget who said that NTFS has that).  Or
force case-insensitive FSes only.  I think all three would work in
different situations, and I don't think it would be too difficult to add
all three.

Ok, so it is soluble.


Just for clarification -- mangling is how VFAT is backwards-compatible with DOS, for example. myreallylongfile.doc becomes MYREAL~1.DOC when viewed from DOS, so that while VFAT should really be read with Windows 95 or better (Linux), it can still be accessed in Dos.

This loses information (if a DOS program backs up and restores
MYREAL~1.DOC, you lose the long (myreallylongfile.doc) name.)  But
sometimes there's no alternative, and if you mangle it (instead of just
chopping off the end of the filename) you avoid collisions -- that is,
if you have:

myreallylongfile.doc
myreallife.doc

then they become

MYREAL~1.DOC
MYREAL~2.DOC



Only question is, where to set which of these to choose (mangle or case
sensitivity)?  Maybe it could be per-directory, most likely per-mount.
But I have no idea how Windows passes mount options ... I don't think it
has any mount options at all.

well, all this assumes we have resources to spare from debugging reiser4 for linux.....;-)

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