[squeak-dev] Bug in #isCaseSensitive on a Mac?

Bert Freudenberg bert at freudenbergs.de
Tue Mar 16 12:00:53 UTC 2010


On 16.03.2010, at 12:55, Juan Vuletich wrote:
> 
> Frank Shearar wrote:
>> Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 3/16/10 8:36 AM, "Juan Vuletich" <juan at jvuletich.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Folks,
>>>> 
>>>> FileDirectory activeDirectoryClass isCaseSensitive answers false on a
>>>> Mac. this is a bug, right?
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Juan Vuletich
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Mac OS X ~= Unix
>> 
>> OS X uses a case sensitive filesystem, so it sounds like a bug.
>> 
>> frank
> 
> I apologize. I shouldn't post before my second coffee. Let me restate:
>   FileDirectory activeDirectoryClass isCaseSensitive
> answers true on a Mac. This is a bug, right?

Yes. But only half a bug. Maybe a ¾ bug ;)

In HFS+ volumes, case-sensitivity is optional and off by default. So the default Mac Harddisk is not case-sensitive. And if you pop in a FAT-formatted USB drive it's not case-sensitive either.

However, the whole case-sensitivy issue in Squeak is much too coarse-grained anyway. You can mount a case-sensitive filesystem in Mac OS X, just like you can mount a case-insensitive filesystem in Linux. What we use is just a zero-order approximation. What would be needed is to support case-sensitivity on a per-volume base.

- Bert -





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