Working in git with directories with the same name but different case in Windows

Question

I want to pull from a git repo in Windows which has two directories, named Foo and foo. Both the folders have different contents.

As Windows is case insensitive and doesn't allow folders with same name but different case, how do I push to the git repo?

Answer 1

As a follow up to poke's answer, you need to split those directories apart into different names, or merge them correctly into one with the same name, depending on your needs of course. They can't have the same name other the case and have it work in Windows (in a clear and obvious manner anyway).

I accidentally ended up in this same boat. I'm not sure how, as I was using Windows the whole time, but at some point I changed the case on a directory in the repo and some files ended up remaining in a directory with the "old" name and some in one with the "new" name. On my Windows machine they were all under the new name, but I found this problem when I pulled the repo into Linux, and confirmed the split when I looked in my remote repo.

To fix this, I first cloned the to a separate location on my Windows machine. Doing so, all the files were there in one directory again, as apparently the two directories just get merged. I then renamed that problem directory to "temp", (using the TortoiseGit "rename" operation). Then, I cloned the repo to yet another location. At that point, the two directories were in fact split apart in Windows. I had a "temp", plus the directory with the "old" name.

As I really did want them in one directory (on all platforms!), I moved the files out of the old named directory into "temp", then deleted the "old" directory. Next, I renamed temp (using the TortoiseGit "rename" operation again) to the name I wanted everything within, committed and pushed again. Finally, I pulled the changes into my original repo (my Linux one) and checked what was on the remote. Everything was finally in agreement, so I deleted those temp clones and called it a day.

Answer 2

Short answer: You can’t do this easily.

By default, this is a restriction of the Windows subsystem. Unless you use lower level system calls, Windows cannot differ between different casing; so even if Git is able to keep track of the differences, it can’t communicate these difference to the file system.

As pointed out in the comments by phuclv, it is possible to reconfigure the Windows kernel to be case sensitive. In Windows 10, this even works for individual folders, so you could use this to add compatibility where you need it. However, the case sensitivity per folder is not inherited, so you will need to manually change this for the folders that Git creates which might be a bit bothersome and makes this mostly a workaround.

Instead, you could make the whole file system case-sensitive but that might have additional implications, so just be careful if you want to do that.

Also note that even if there is support for case-sensitive content on the lower level, most Windows applications, including built-in Windows tools, will probably not be able to work with this. So this will only allow you to work with these files from certain tools. My guess would for example that most GUI based Git tools simply won’t work here.

If you don’t want to make these modifications, then what you maybe also could do is create partial commits where you just add files to the correct folder (you need to rename it in-between to get the different casing). But that will be very impractical.

In my opinion, the best solution is to simply avoid using multiple files on folders with conflicting names. Even on case-sensitive systems, this will only make things more confusing. By avoiding this completely, you also make it easier for all other developers to interact with the project.