file system name case insensitivity issue: Possible inclusion for the FAQ or User Manual?

[Lee Rothstein <lee at veritech dot com>]

Issue: Possible confusing consequences of CYGWIN variable option:
glob:noignorecase

What follows is an edited transcript of my confusion about trying
to find the command "xwin" (and eventual resolution), having
forgotten about its capitalization. More specifically, I was
trying to figure out if it was a binary or a script (not having
used X in the last year, or so).

BTW, the reason I had glob:noignorecase set was to catch
capitalization errors on HTML file names I develop for a
LAMP server.

The transcript, however, indicates the option will not achieve my
aim.
--
/ $ cd /bin

/bin $ echo $CYGWIN
tty title nodosfilewarning glob:noignorecase winsymlinks ntsec

/bin $ type xwin
/bin/xwin

/bin $ which xwin
/bin/xwin

/bin $ ls -l xwin
-rwxrwx--- 1 lr root 2080270 Apr 22 14:45 xwin

/bin $ ls -l xwin*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 lr root  24590 Oct 14  2009 xwininfo.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 lr root 172544 Jan 19  2009 xwinwm.exe

# 'rwhich' is a case insensitive regex command finder script,
# I wrote, not a part of the Cygwin distribution

/bin $ rwhich $ rwhich xwin
/local/Scripts/start_xwin.old
/bin/dmxwininfo.exe
/bin/lyxwin.exe
/bin/startxwin.exe
/bin/XWin.exe
/bin/xwininfo.exe
/bin/xwinwm.exe

/bin $ ls -l XWin*
-rwxrwx--- 1 lr root 2080270 Apr 22 14:45 XWin.exe

/bin $ xwin
--
<Successfully starts X Windows>
--
And, yes, had I thought of it first, I could have used 'file':

/bin $ file xwin
xwin: PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 (stripped to external PDB), for 
MS Windows

but the capitalization issue remains.

Finally, I am aware of the change that can be made to the
registry that will make the file system case sensitive, but I've
been burned in the past by non-standard changes to the registry,
and will avoid that.

BTW, it's little excursions like this that make me value Cygwin
more, not less. Creating the illusion of a coherent *NIX
environment on Windows is non-trivial. Thanks, Cygwin developers.

Lee




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