Fixed Bug in RENAME Commands

[Jay Sage]

For file renames that change only the case of the name, RENAME throws an error message when the /N switch is included.

TCC(30.00.18): C:\temp\sandbox>dirx & *rename /n B b & dirx
1
2
A
a b
B
C:\temp\sandbox\B -> C:\temp\sandbox\b
TCC: (Sys) Cannot create a file when that file already exists.
"C:\temp\sandbox\b"
0 files would be renamed
1
2
A
a b
B

Without the /N switch, it performs the operation that changes the case.

TCC(30.00.18): C:\temp\sandbox>dirx & *rename B b & dirx
1
2
A
a b
B
C:\temp\sandbox\B -> C:\temp\sandbox\b
1 file renamed
1
2
A
a b
b

This is a real error, not just a reporting peculiarity, as I noted in the thread about the DIR command and regular expressions.

 

[rconn]

REN has behaved this way for about 30 years.

The issue here is two-fold: first, Windows filenames are case insensitive, and second, the Windows API did not support changing case in an otherwise identical filename. 4DOS / 4NT / TCC had to jump through some hoops to do that (doing a double rename). More recently Windows now actually allows you to do that, but the old /N code in REN wasn't updated to take advantage of that.

I have made a change in 30.0.19 to support it.