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I am having an issue when developing a WordPress plugin in Windows, and then uploading it to any server running Linux. Originally, the filename of the file was Blue.png and thus I changed it to blue.png. At first it wouldn't change (or it did but was still saying Blue.png), I switched folders and came back and it was blue.png.

Now when I upload this plugin to any server running Linux, it reads the filename as Blue.png so now my plugin cannot find that file and throws an error.

What can I do to force it to use blue.png as the filename?

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Is there not a solution in your file uploading program? Often they come with a rename filtering option to let you do things like this. Failing that you could simply rename it using the program you're uploading with, e.g. issuing a MOVE command to rename it with FTP. – deed02392 Mar 12 '12 at 9:16
Well I am using Git, not sure if it has that feature but I will be looking into it. Git was reading the filename as Blue.png as well. – Jared Mar 12 '12 at 9:28
Yeah I'm not disputing Windows didn't rename it as you wanted but Git probably wouldn't make renaming it on the Linux machine and mirroring that back to Windows very intuitive. Renaming the file on the command line might yield better results? – deed02392 Mar 12 '12 at 9:34
Apparently it worked with Git, although I'm sure it would work the same using the regular command line commands. Basically just using the mv command. – Jared Mar 12 '12 at 10:17
Glad to hear it :) – deed02392 Mar 12 '12 at 10:22

1 Answer

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Windows does treat filenames in apparently odd ways, and because it is case insensitive you can find that just trying to change the case of a filename can be problematical. Thing aren't help by the fact that, for example, if the filename is all upper case it will get displayed in initial case, which makes it difficult know what case the filename actually has.

The simplest solution is to either delete the file and recreate it or rename it to something completely different and then back to the name you actually want. So in your case you'd go:

Blue.png -> green.png -> blue.png

If you are using source control then you'll have to perform this rename in your source control application rather than in Windows. In this case Windows is being told what the name is and you can't modify it.

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Thanks, renaming it worked, although I had to use Git (git mv Blue.png blah.png then git mv blah.png blue.png). Windows didn't care what I was trying to do. :) – Jared Mar 12 '12 at 9:34
@Jared Ah - my mistake. That's true as well. – ChrisF Mar 12 '12 at 9:36

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