Change case of a file on Windows? [duplicate]

Question

Have a look here for more hints on how to do it:

How to make git ignore changes in case?

Or:

git mv -f name.java Name.java

If you are on a FAT file system your only choice is to do a two stage rename:

1. Rename sourceCode.java to anything.you.like
2. Rename anything.you.like to SourceCode.java

Back in the days when we used Perforce we had exactly this problem and this was the only solution we could come up with.

The following steps allowed me to change the case on Windows:

• Add ignorecase = false to [core] in .git/config;
• Move the files you are going to rename out of your project directory;
• Add the deletes to the index;
• Move all files back to their original location and change the case of the files and/or directories;
• Add all "new" files to the index;
• Remove ignorecase = false added at the first step.

This way you have a single commit that contains the rename and it makes it easy to change e.g. an entire directory.

In my opinion one simple way is missing. You can do this for a single file, a specific directory or even the whole repository. Just rename your files in any way you like before and than execute these commands:

git rm --cached <file name or directory>
git add <file name or directory>

If you want to affect also the sub-directories, you have to use the -r flag:

git rm -r --cached <directory>
git add <directory>

Be careful. Doing this can lead to changes that are impossible to merge. Git gets confused when merging on Windows because it can't decide whether the old Uppercase name and the new lowercase name are the same file or not (for Git they are not, but for the filesystem they are). To merge you have to do some manual workaround like deleting the files before merging.

See Git rebase issue with files of same name but different case

I'm not sure if this issue is worse than having an unconventionally-named file in your project for ever and ever, but it is worth knowing about if there are lots of users with lots of branches which will all need to be merged eventually.