Case sensitivity

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Case Sensitivity
There are three general methods of storing file/folder names on the disk:

Case insensitive

All filenames are stored on the disk and appear on directory listings with unified casing (all upper or all lower). Mixed casing is not allowed, there is no difference between upper and lower case letters. Names like "Program.App", "program.app", "PrOgRaM.aPp" are considered identical. A reference name like "PROGRAM.APP" to a file, which was saved as "program.app", is perfectly legal. An example of such a filesystem is the TOS FS or NEWFAT without VFAT extension.

Case preserving

This is similar to the case insensitive one, with a notable exception, that the filename casing is preserved in the form used by the creator of the file. For example, if you create a file "Program.App", it will appear in directory listings as "Program.App". However, it is only some sort of visual stuff, the casing still does not matter when directory searching is performed. Hence the "Program.App" file can be legally referenced as "program.app", "PROGRAM.APP" or whatever. An example of such a filesystem is the NEWFAT with VFAT or FreeMiNT's internal ramdisk (u:\ram). Also all internal pseudo-filesystems in FreeMiNT, like unifs, biosfs etc. are case preserving.

Case sensitive

Here casing just matters. If you save a file under a name like "program.app", you cannot access it later as "PROGRAM.APP", because these two names will be considered different. Also, a case sensitive filesystem is simultaneously case preserving by nature. An example of such a filesystem is ext2.xfs or minix.xfs.

Please note Because of the case preserving and case sensitive filesystems, the old TOS convention of storing all path and filenames in UPPERCASE is *** no longer valid ***. File- and pathnames should be lowercase by default.