Case-inconsistency of PHP file paths on Mac / MAMP?

Question

I'm developing a PHP program on MAMP, and just realized the following screwy behavior:

echo "<br/>PATH = ".dirname(__FILE__);
include 'include.php';

include.php:

<?php
echo "<br/>PATH = ".dirname(__FILE__);
?>

Result:

PATH = /users/me/stuff/mamp_server/my_site (All lower case)

PATH = /Users/me/Stuff/mamp_server/my_site (Mixed case)

What is causing this inconsistent behavior, and how can I protect against it? (Note that I can't just convert everything to lowercase, because the application is destined for a Linux server, where file paths are case sensitive. )

Update:

This problem exists for __FILE__ and __DIR__.

It looks like this might be a real problem with no work around... going to file a bug report unless I hear otherwise.

Bug report:

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60017

Update:

And another note: If you're doing an absolute path include(...) on Mac, it requires the mixed case version.

Answer 1

I have had similar problems developing PHP on MAC OS X. You can format with a case sensitive filesystem but if you are using Adobe's design software you might run into trouble: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/392791

The real issue is that the file system that is said to be case insensitive is in actual fact partially case insensitive. You can create two files with names 'Filename' and 'filename' in the same directory but 'Filename' and 'filename' may point to both files: http://systemsboy.com/2005/12/mac-osx-command-line-is-partially-case-insensitive.html

Answer 2

What about creating an include file in the same directory as your app.

<?php return __DIR__; ?>

Use it like so:

$trueDIR = include('get_true_dir.php');

From what you posted above, this should work. Yes, it's a bit of a hacky workaround, but it is a workaround, and should work even on systems not suffering from this issue.

Answer 3

This is the code I use to get the correct casing of a given filename:

function get_cased_filename($filename)
{
    $globbable = addcslashes($filename, '?*[]\\');
    $globbable = preg_replace_callback('/[a-zA-Z]/', 'get_bracket_upper_lower', $globbable);
    $files = glob($globbable);
    if (count($files)==1)
    {
        return $files[0];
    }
    return false;
}

function get_bracket_upper_lower($m)
{
    return '['.strtolower($m[0]).strtoupper($m[0]).']';
}

The glob should only match one file, but if used on a case sensitive file system then it could match more - required behaviour is up to you - eg return the [0] anyway or throw a E_NOTICE or something.

You might find it helpful: $mydir = get_cased_filename(dirname(__FILE__)); Works for my CLI PHP 5.3.6 on Mac 10.6.8.

I use it to deal with coworkers who don't notice things like "Filename" and "filename" being different. (These people also wonder why filenames that contain ">" or "?" don't work when copying from Mac to Windows server, but I digress...)