Re: case sensitivity in file-sets distributed in media

Hello Al,

I fully agree with your proposal below. Please note that your
'best practice' rules apply not only to file:, but also to
http: if you want to be sure that you can move from one server
to another.

Regards,    Martin.

At 11:21 02/07/04 -0400, Al Gilman wrote:


>An interesting issue has come up in the context of the standard digital 
>talking book
><http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/z3986-2002.html>.  [See also
><http://www.loc.gov/nls/niso/>.]
>
>The dominant mode of distribution for these information objects is as 
>file-sets
>in media, for example CD ROM.
>
>The specification makes heavy use of URI-references from and to XML and
>specifically SMIL in holding the composite object together.  So references
>by URI-reference are a critical dependency of this technology.
>
>But from the CD-ROM the files are referenced by file: URLs.
>
>In the context of file: URLs it would appear that there is no common practice
>as to the case sensitivity of file paths.  So we came up with the following
>candidate rules for file naming and reference within a talking book published
>as a fileset to be safe under conditions of media distribution and file-system
>access:
>
>1) the file paths to distinct information objects (within the book) should
>be distinct under case-insensitive comparison.
>
>2) references across files within the book should match under case-sensitive
>comparison.
>
>This pair of constraints-on-practice should make the set of file-paths
>within the book a namespace, and the URI-references a graph encoding,
>which are insensitive to the case-sensitivity characteristics of any
>given local file system.
>
>Is this an established FAQ in any community of which you are aware?
>
>Is there any good reason not to impose these constraints on practice in this
>application?
>
>Al

Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2002 11:07:42 UTC