[OpenAFS-devel] AFS vs UNICODE

[Jeffrey Altman]

Erik Dalén wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 9:38 PM, Jeffrey Altman
> <jaltman@secure-endpoints.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> All directory searches and file comparisons are performed by normalizing the
>> input from Windows and the strings from the file servers prior to performing
>> the comparison.   However, non-normalized strings are always delivered to
>> the operating system.
> 
> So, if you have an existing file in normalization D it is not possible
> to write a file in normalization C but otherwise the same name?
> (assuming it contains a composed character in the file name)

It doesn't matter what the normalization or lack of normalization.
The Windows client will only permit one instance to be created.

> But otherwise the windows clients use normalization C for files they
> create, right?

The Windows client does not normalize what is written to the file 
server.  It writes to the file server whatever was received from Windows.

> If there is two files with the same name but different normalizations
> will the windows client always open and write to the one with
> normalization C?

No.  It will prefer an exact match and if that does not exist then it
will not permit either to be opened because the choice is ambiguous.
This is exactly the same behavior as is performed for case insensitive 
matches.

Jeffrey Altman