From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: git on MacOSX and files with decomposed utf-8 file names Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:25:52 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: References: <478E1FED.5010801@web.de> <65026F2B-5CE8-4238-A9AB-D3545D336B41@sb.org> <200801162251.54219.jnareb@gmail.com> <1574A90A-8C45-46AD-9402-34AE6F582B3F@sb.org> <7652B11D-9B9F-45EA-9465-8294B701FE7C@sb.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Cc: Jakub Narebski , Johannes Schindelin , Mark Junker , git@vger.kernel.org To: Kevin Ballard X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Jan 17 01:27:10 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JFIb3-00036v-Ad for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:27:05 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751898AbYAQA0c (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:26:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751598AbYAQA0c (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:26:32 -0500 Received: from smtp2.linux-foundation.org ([207.189.120.14]:33858 "EHLO smtp2.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751217AbYAQA0b (ORCPT ); Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:26:31 -0500 Received: from imap1.linux-foundation.org (imap1.linux-foundation.org [207.189.120.55]) by smtp2.linux-foundation.org (8.13.5.20060308/8.13.5/Debian-3ubuntu1.1) with ESMTP id m0H0PrYB001773 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:25:54 -0800 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by imap1.linux-foundation.org (8.13.5.20060308/8.13.5/Debian-3ubuntu1.1) with ESMTP id m0H0PqIS032556; Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:25:53 -0800 In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Alpine 1.00 (LFD 882 2007-12-20) X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.715 required=5 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.0-osdl_revision__1.47__ X-MIMEDefang-Filter: lf$Revision: 1.188 $ X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.53 on 207.189.120.14 Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Wed, 16 Jan 2008, Kevin Ballard wrote: > > My understanding is that normalization is there to help the computer. That > doesn't give it any semantic meaning, because all normal forms of a given > string still represent the exact same string to the user. THAT IS NOT TRUE! How the hell does the computer know what the string means? Hint: it does not. The fact is, the user may use a non-normalized string on purpose. It's not your place to say that the user is wrong. Your "undestanding" is simply wrong. Two strings are *different* if they are [un]normalized differently. Really. The exact same way the word Polish and polish are different, just because they are capitalized differently. > The argument for case insensitivity is different than the argument for > normalization. I certainly hope you understand why they are different > arguments, or there's really no point in going further. You do not understand. In *order* to do case-insensitivity, you generally need to normalize (and do other things too - normalization is just *one* of the things you need to do). So if you are a case-insensitive filesystem, then normalization is sane. But if you aren't, then there is no reason to normalize. > You're right, sometimes the sequence matters. As in key sequences. But we're > not talking about key sequences, we're talking about strings. You define "string" to be something totally made-up. In your world "string" means "normalized". BUT IT'S NOT TRUE! You define normalization to be a property of strings, without any actual backing for why that would be. The fact is, *looks the same* is very very different from *is the same*. But you seem to be too stupid to undestand the differce. Linus