Check if file system is case-insensitive in Python

Question

Is there a simple way to check in Python if a file system is case insensitive? I'm thinking in particular of file systems like HFS+ (OSX) and NTFS (Windows), where you can access the same file as foo, Foo or FOO, even though the file case is preserved.

Answer 1

import os
import tempfile

# By default mkstemp() creates a file with
# a name that begins with 'tmp' (lowercase)
tmphandle, tmppath = tempfile.mkstemp()
if os.path.exists(tmppath.upper()):
    # Case insensitive.
else:
    # Case sensitive.

Answer 2

The answer provided by Amber will leave temporary file debris unless closing and deleting are handled explicitly. To avoid this I use:

import os
import tempfile

def is_fs_case_sensitive():
    #
    # Force case with the prefix
    #
    with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(prefix='TmP') as tmp_file:
        return(not os.path.exists(tmp_file.name.lower()))

Though my usage cases generally test this more than once, so I stash the result to avoid having to touch the filesystem more than once.

def is_fs_case_sensitive():
    if not hasattr(is_fs_case_sensitive, 'case_sensitive'):
        with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(prefix='TmP') as tmp_file:
            setattr(is_fs_case_sensitive,
                    'case_sensitive',
                    not os.path.exists(tmp_file.name.lower()))
    return(is_fs_case_sensitive.case_sensitive)

Which is marginally slower if only called once, and significantly faster in every other case.