[pmwiki-users] RFC: capitalization collision handling

[Oliver Betz]

Hello All,

the case sensitivity of page names has several disadvantages.

One of them is the portability problem. A Wiki with two pages 
differing only in case (e.g. SandBox and Sandbox) can't be moved to a 
Windows system.

The other, IMO more important problem, are typos. Users mistype the 
case of a pagename and create a (link to a) new page instead of 
referencing the existing page.

Therefore I suggest to add a check with warning for capitalization 
collisions
* when pages are to be created (action=edit) for the name
* when page text is submitted for the links
* ...any place I missed?

Two possible methods for collision handling handle chime in:

1. Simply _force_ links and pagenames to the existing capitalization. 
This would be simpler to implement (I would do so) and sufficient in 
most cases. Especially useful on Windows systems: If the OS is case 
preserving but case insensitive, it simply makes no sense to allow 
other references to the page.

2. The user could be warned about the possible collision and asked
* whether it's intentionally
* or he wants to correct it
* or PmWiki should correct the links automatically.
Luxurious...


Comparison with other software:

Using Subversion on Windows, you usually block commits with case 
collisions and let the user resolve the problem.

DokuWiki converts all pagenames to lowercase. Although this makes 
things simple, I don't like it very much from an estethical point of 
view.

Comments?

Oliver
-- 
Oliver Betz, Muenchen