Filename case sensitivity in Safari

J

jeffrito

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I've got a CD containing documentation in HTML and PDF format. The documentation is for the OpenVMS operating system. The CD is designed to be used as any regular CD - not OS specific.

So, I mount the CD and it appears on my desktop. Inside is a main index document INDEX.HTML (note case).

The document opens OK in Safari, but the images don't load from the CD. When I click on one of the links the document is not found on the CD.

After some investigation I found out why. The HTML is encoded with a name like VMSDOC073/v73/6018/6018PRO.HTML. So Safari is trying to load /Volumes/VMSDOC073/v73/6018/6018PRO.HTML. But on the CD the v37 folder is actually V37 (capital V). In some cases the main HTML has the link coded with a lowercase filename (like 6018pro.html) but the actual file on the CD is (6018PRO.HTML).

Is there a way to get around all this case sensitivity? All the files referenced in all the links are in the right place, but because of case being different in either the link or the name - browsing won't work. This is also why images don't load.

The only thing I could think of was to star web sharing and browse with http:// instead of file://. But that failed too.

*** Please, no comments like "Why are you looking at VMS documentation on a Mac unless you want me to unleash vile words back on you. Serious explanations only. ***
 
I want to say that I've heard of a way of mounting DVDs/CDs in a different format by holding down Shift, Option, Command or Control, or a combination thereof when you insert the CD/DVD. Apparently, it's possible to mount DVDs in UDF or MacOS Extended format depending on what keys you hold down when you insert the DVD.

After searching around for a while, I found nothing referencing that for you, though. I apologize, but perhaps you can find something on this if you search around a little.

I think this will help your situation, as getting a DVD to mount in UDF format would eliminate the capitalization problems you're having.

Edit: Can you try right-clicking or command-clicking on the mounted CD and see if it gives you a "Mount as..." option or something similar to that? After thinking about it, I think you'd need to mount the disk as an ISO9660 instead of UDF...
 
Well, thanks for the tip. That got me thinking and researching.

The documentation disk IS an ISO 9660 CD. From what I understand that should be readable on ALL platforms. The disk even indicates Mac readibility right on the CD.

Of course, the CD worked perfect in a PC.

So what I don't understand is that if ISO 9660 is a cross-platform format, why is the case-sensitivity an issue? Could it be that the Mac OS X mounting process is not setting all the correct options for that type of disk?

Reading the ISO 9660 format is not an issue. It mounts OK and I can "Finder-Browse" it OK. The problem is that the content is designed to be seen through a web browser so the individual file names are not easy to scan alone and know their contents.

Any more suggestions?
 
Do a search for "rename" on versiontracker (macosx). im sure one of the applications that show up can help you rename all the files to lower case.
 
That would be a solution if he wasn't trying to read the files off of the CD itself. Copying the files to the hard drive and then renaming them would work, but that would be a giant step to take to get this to work.

When you insert the CD in the drive, click on the CD icon and do a "Get Info" (command-i) and then see what the "Format:" section says... does it say ISO9660?
 
R-Name works very well, but like ElDiabloConCaca said, he would have to copy the files from the CD and rename, then burn them again to use either of the programs you suggested.
 
[Yes, looking at the format in the Info panel I see ISO 9660 for the format. And yes, I could pull the contents to the hard drive, tweak and re-burn. But that's a lot of work for something that (if I'm reading everything correctly) should work.

The CD documentation states that this is a level 2 ISO 9660 CD. Should that make a difference?

What I'm wondering is would Compaq (the CD maker) expect all it's VMS users to rely on a PC to use the doc CD. What if they had workstations that were unix based? Would they have problems too? VMS and PCs/Windows are sensitive to case like unix. I wish everyone else would just stick to one case.

Hmmmm. This isn't a great problem, only that it bothers me that the Mac OS - a wonderful system - would have trouble with this.

I'm not unix guru enough to mount the disk from terminal. But in my reading it looks like there are options to deal with filenames. Any ideas here?
 
Well, hmmm... I still wanna say there's a way to mount the CD in a different format, but I just can't seem to find any information to back that up.

Howabout trying a different browser, say, Internet Explorer?
 
I don't know if it'll be any help, but open Terminal, tupe ls space and drag the CD to the terminal window.

You can also do man mount and see if any of the info will help.
 
Ok, after a ton of researching, I am convinced that the problem lies in the fact that the CD is being mounted as an ISO9660/Joliet CD, and that alone is causing the filenames to default to lowercase. ISO9660 apparently has two different revisions - regular ISO9660, which is capable only of the 8 charater filenames with a 3 character extension, and the "Rock Ridge" format, which allows UNIX and other systems to be able to "see" long filenames and other enhancements on the filesystem.

Now, under OS 9, with the "Joliet Extension" installed, you could read Rock Ridge ISO96660s and all their long-filename glory. However, you could also right-click or control-click on the CD/DVD when it was mounted and an option to "Mount as ISO9660" was available to display the 8.3-style filenames.

Also, 8.3 filenames show up in all-capital letters on ISO9660 non-Rock Ridge disks. I think this is where the problem is.

Now, I realize this still leaves you in a predicament and what I said before was just a bunch of rambling about why it happens and provides no real solution so far, but this has been bugging me since I read your first post and I'm almost obsessed about finding a solution... anyways, hope to have one to you soon.
 
Well, it seems that the maker of the CD just didn't think thoroughly about file systems and cases. If he or she HAD thought about it, all paths and filenames would be either lower- or uppercase. This CD is Windows compatible, as it seems. ;-) (As Windows' IE doesn't care about cases, which is a drag, really.)

I'd do as said before: Copy the contents of the CD to your harddrive and adjust either the file names or the HTML's href code. Then, find out who _did_ the CD and tell him/her to grow up.
 
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