Re: capitalization in filenames -- bad bug

[Quinn Taylor]

On Apr 12, 2009, at 12:52 PM, kerri miller wrote:

On Apr 12, 2009, at 11:27 AM, bigbadotis wrote:

Today I changed some filenames to have lowercase letters instead of

deleted the broken aliases with the intent of adding the new files.

But Versions then went ahead and actually deleted the files that it
had previously claimed it couldn't find.

uppercase. When I launched Versions, it showed the files as missing. I

Working in the web world, I'm constantly annoyed by the Mac not
understanding that capitalized versions of letters are NOT the same as
their lower-case counterparts :S

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_preservation
http://davidwinter.me.uk/articles/2008/05/17/mac-os-xhfs-case-insensitive-why/
http://foolswisdom.com/attack-of-the-case-sensitive-filesystem/

Similarly, know that others have struggled with similar issues.

http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=667
http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2010

I can understand the annoyance, but it is so by default for historical reasons (e.g. "Classic" Mac OS), and can be changed if desired. However, there are reasons on the other side of the argument why changing it is not always a good idea...

Awesome. Many hours of work
lost. This is a pretty bad bug and I am pissed right now.

Wait, isn't the file still in previous revisions?  You should be able
to get the files back to the last committed state.

Basically, if it says that it can't find a file in the GUI, Versions
shouldn't be able to then go and delete a file that has the same name

the trash. Just gone.

with different capitalization off your hard drive. They're not even in

Sometimes we'd like for it not to, but by the rules, Versions actually should be able to. File comparisons done by the OS use the case- sensitivity option of the file system, so it's not really Versions' fault. Note: Your description about deleting the aliases from Versions could be a bug — did you click Force Delete? If you can more fully describe what happened, and especially if you can reproduce it, I'm sure the devs would be willing to check it out.

My guess is that this is an OS issue this might be gruesome to code
defensively for.

-k-

 - Quinn

Sort of, since it's the default for HFS+. That being the case, one could argue that it is "correct" for apps to be case-insensitive yet case-preserving (emphasis on the last part). As another user mentioned, since Versions links against the Subversion libraries, it's unlikely that Versions will cause problems if the rename is done properly through Subversion, whether Versions, Terminal, etc. It's truly unfortunate to lose any amount of work due to these types of misunderstandings, so please don't think I'm coming off as unsympathetic. Just trying to shed some light on the subject to help people avoid the problem and understand what's going on under the hood.

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