Re: [RFC] Case insensitive Git attributes

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi Duy,

On Mon, 17 Oct 2016, Duy Nguyen wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 3:57 PM, Johannes Schindelin
> <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> > Hi Stefan,
> >
> > On Sun, 16 Oct 2016, Stefan Beller wrote:
> >
> >> Conceptually I would prefer if we had a single switch that indicates a
> >> case insensitive FS.
> >
> > AFAIU Lars' use case is where the FS is *case sensitive*, but he still
> > needs the .gitattributes to be *case insensitive* because that file
> > originates from a developer with such a file system.
> >
> > Otherwise he would simply tack onto the core.ignoreCase flag.
> 
> That sounds to me like setting core.ignoreCase to true (on all devs'
> repo) would "solve" this.

It is good that you quoted this verb, because it does not solve things.
Instead, it would try to use the flag for two slightly incompatible
purposes at the same time.

The first (and so far, only) purpose is to tell Git that the current file
system is case insensitive.

The new purpose you described would be to tell Git that the *user* does
not care about the file names' case, even if the file system does.

I do not think that this leads to a better situation than before. Instead,
I am convinced that it will cause new and sometimes "entertaining"
problems because you can no longer discern between those two purposes
based on core.ignoreCase, you would have to teach Git to test every single
time whether the file system is case-sensitive or not.

Needless to say, I'd rather not see that happening. Many users, including
my colleagues and myself, rely on Git being a rock solid piece of
software, and that change would make it less so.

Ciao,
Dscho