[darcs-devel] [issue43] get"-ing a repository that contains an upper case file name fails on vfat filesystem

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

I've seen this, and in my case it turned out to be a limiatation of
the Linux VFAT implementation.

Darcs is designed to work well on case-preserving filesystems, whether
case-sensitive (as traditional Unix filesystems) or not (as Mac OS X'
HFS+).  Darcs does not work on filesystems that don't preserve file
case.

If you create an all-caps file on a Linux VFAT filesystem that fits in
the 8+3 format, then Linux doesn't create a ``Long Filename'' (LFN),
but just maps it to an 8+3 filename.  The net effect is that if you do

  touch README
  ls

you will see a file ``readme'' in place of ``README''.

I have no idea if there are any ways to munt a VFAT filesystem to be
case-preserving.  It's also not clear to me whether Darcs can be made
to work on non-case-preserving filesystems.

As a workaround, you can use ``no-pristine-tree'' repositories on your
VFAT filesystems which will almost, but not quite, work around the
problem.

I'm deferring this bug for now, -- but that's only because we don't
have a WONTFIX status.  Feel free to reopen it if you have a workable
idea how to work around the issue.

                                        Juliusz