From: Cameron McBride <cameron@...>
Date: 2002-05-04T13:01:46+09:00
Subject: Re: require and case

> Cameron McBride  <cameron@cwru.edu> wrote:
> >> >Should require be case insensitive or should it give a warning if the module
> >> >it's trying to load has different case to that specified?
> >> 
> >> Well, you wouldn't have had an issue on Unix, but because the Windows 
> >> filesystem only pretends to be case-sensitive and then really isn't this 
> >> is what happens.  Maybe there should be a warning, but it should only be 
> >> enabled on Windows...  Don't need or want it on the Unices.
> >
> >I disagree.  If I were writing an app on my happy linux box, but I
> >wanted to distribute it about and have it work on Windows -- I would
> >want the warning.
> >
> >Without the warning -- it seems a quick way to introduce 'porting'
> >problems on a script that otherwise shouldn't have them.  Anyhow, why
> >would I want to use same name / different case package names?  If I do
> >it -- its got to be a mistake anyhow...  ;-)
> >
On Sat, May 04, 2002 at 01:53:01AM +0900, Phil Tomson wrote:
> Well, maybe I should clarify my statement.  Let's say you're on Unix and 
> the file you want to require is named Some.rb.
> 
> Now if you say:
> require 'some'
> 
> You're going to get an error that says that some.rb doesn't exist in the 
> search path.
> 
> But on Windows it would have worked because even though you see the file 
> in your file viewer as Some.rb, it'll accept some.rb.
> 
> So the warning isn't needed under Unix because you'll get an error anyway 
> if you try to mixup the case of the name of the file being required.

My turn to clarify.  ;-)  Your example is true, but what about if you
have some nontrivial code (ie you miss the obvious).  

Say you created a new lib (new.rb) and sucked it in with a require:
require 'new'

But what you forgot is that yesterday, you created another lib that did
something different, but you happened to name it 'New.rb' and did:
require 'New'

If I am right, this will work nicely on my unix box -- but will choke a
non-case sensitive OS.  This is where the warning would be nice.

Cameron

ps -- I really should have tested this before posting, so please forgive my
friday evening laziness if I am wrong.