Re: [egit-dev] Re: jgit problems for file paths with non-ASCII characters

Thomas Singer [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

You mean we should do the same thing as Apple with HFS?  Are you serious?

Yes, I'm serious. IMHO there should be a defined clear encoding used for
files names in the repository. Otherwise you don't know what you can expect
by reading it - it could mean anything. File names are in fact strings which
are based on characters. To convert characters to bytes (or visa versa) you
need to know the encoding.

That's likely not going to fly.  HFS+ has changed their decomposition
rules at least once, which means the byte sequence for the same
character sequence would differ, and a tree or commit hash would
come out different depending upon which rules you were following.
See [1] for details on what HFS+ does.

Also, Linus has previously stated HFS+ chose the worst possible
way to encode the names.  Getting Linus to admit he was wrong is
impossible, getting Linus to accept the HFS+ encoding rules as the
standard format used in a Git repository is not likely to happen.
Fortunately Linus carries a slightly smaller stick in Git than he
used to, but he is quite vocal and people tend to listen.

[1] http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn/tn1150.html#UnicodeSubtleties

-- 
Shawn.