How to handle Case-sensitive files?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jun 23, 2010, at 17:55, Michael Dickens wrote:

>> This is a known problem with the flat registry,
>> <http://trac.macports.org/ticket/14123>. Try switching to sqlite.
> 
> Ah; in my search for "case sensitive" I didn't go back that far (just to
> around ticket 20000 or so, which I thought would be far enough) :) 
> Thank you for pointing that out.
> 
> I -hope- that this flat / sqlite issue is documented somewhere easily
> searchable.  Yet a brief effort using various combinations of "macports
> flat sqlite case-sensitive" found nothing except the ChangeLog, which
> really isn't that useful for the average user.  I think those tickets I
> noted before would benefit from this knowledge ...

The sqlite registry has only just become available to the masses a few weeks ago with the release of MacPorts 1.9.0. I don't think we have any documentation on it at all.


> Is it possible to add a check into the code: if the file system is flat
> & then if a file of the same name has already been added (for this port
> being activated, or some other port), and if for this port, then print
> out a warning about this issues & how it might effect upgrading or
> removing the port & how to move to using sqlite?  Or, something to that
> effect -- just some obvious warning so that I, as the end user, might
> have a clue of the issue and what to do about it.  That would be greatly
> useful for folks such as myself who really have no idea of the inner
> workings of 'port' and MacPorts in general. - MLD

That's pretty specialized.

Any port that tries to install items that differ only in case is already broken, since most Mac users have case-insensitive filesystems. Port maintainers need to be fixing these problems and reporting them for fixing upstream.