Improved Case-Insensitive File Handling Coming To Linux 6.9

[pkunk]

Does a clear and well-defined definition which characters have an upper case and which have a lower case exist? And is it guaranteed bijective? And if yes, is it true for ASCII only, or actually for unicode?

It is impossible even for ASCII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dotted...I_in_computing

Edit: In actuality C+F Unicode case folding is used to compare names:

https://www.unicode.org/Public/15.0.0/ucd/CaseFolding.txt

[skeevy420]

LOL! are you serious?

To a slight extent, yes. You're getting upset about an optional feature that helps deal with a lot of legacy baggage and make Linux a lot easier for WINE users. Instead of naming things how we want to name things within OS limitations and constraints, we have to limit that even further by following some sort of POSIX or Wayland for File Names? So with these "Smart Filenames", do we follow the Windows Standards or the Linux Standards or something new? Either way we'll need a way to handle case between what we do now and your Smart Filenames Protocol.

We should just go back to 8+3 in all lowercase with 640k in memory. No one needs more than that ; but we'd also need case sensitivity and length converters to handle everything from the past 4 decades

Freedom requires Case Handling....so does Fascism

You can't win for losing

Smart Filenames

[anda_skoa]

instead of making filesystems dumber?

Actually this makes the the file system smarter.

If the program asks for "FOO.DAT" but the actual filename is "foo.dat", then the filesystem can now tell the program "sure, whatever, here have the file handle to foo.dat".

Essentially a kernel level improvement to support Wine in dealing with badly written Windows software.

[rclark]

We should just go back to 8+3 in all lowercase.... No one needs more than that

What is wrong with 8+3 ? Simplify. Of course can't go back now as that horse has left the barn long ago. But not allow 'spaces' in file names? That I'd support. Use Underscores or Camel case. One of my pet peeves.

As long as the case insensitive filenames is optional I have no problem with it. Some may find a use for it.

[plandream]

Also: Civilization V modding. Nice!

[Draget]

#hottaketime:

I see the 'how well-defined is the lower/upper case bijection' point, that this might have some security implications.
I am also a Linux user for 15 years and am totally used to case-sensetive filenames.

But putting all those mental prejudices and habits aside and thinking purely logically… (Imagine having physical folder and files in cabinets that you label with a pen):

What would be the difference if I label one of my paper folder with 'BANK DOCUMENTS' vs. 'Bank Documents' vs. 'Bank documents'?

If you ask me, ignoring the case is somewhat a more 'natural' thing to do, and allowing folders 'Pictures' and 'pictures' to co-exist next to each other sounds more like a long-time technical flaw that is actually finally fixed by having a case-insensetive filesystem…

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

Why, Lord, why?

Meh. Interacting with directories with a bunch of files with the same names but different casing isn't exactly fun.

<presses tab>

Shit, no, that's not what I wanted.

<backspace backspace backspace>

[schmidtbag]

If it's optional, who cares? Just don't enable it if you don't want it. I see nothing wrong in having a choice in the matter, since presumably anyone who uses it knows they're using it. Personally, I'd rather just create symlinks of the alternating cases if they're known to be a problem.

[sobkas]

If you have ext4 with case-insensitive enabled you can't mount overlayfs on any directory even if it doesn't touch directory that uses it. I would like to see this fixed.
I have to use fuse-overlayfs.

[RAINFIRE]

Fascism...

Nothing to do with that. Please check yourself.