testing/asserting case sensitivity
Ben, The way I approach these things is using Github Classrooms and pre-configured Actions. Takes a bit of extra work to set up initially but saves so much time in the long run. Otherwise, the "classical" solution would be to mandate that all files should have lowercase naming in your rubrics and dock points for violations ? One could provide them with a script that checks that everything in the project folder follows the naming conventions. I am less convinced that a feasible solution can be found from within R itself. Best, Taras
From: R-SIG-Mac <r-sig-mac-bounces at r-project.org> on behalf of Ben Bolker <bbolker at gmail.com>
Sent: 17 January 2026 21:57
To: r-sig-mac at r-project.org <r-sig-mac at r-project.org>
Cc: Bio 708 <bio708qmee at gmail.com>
Subject: [R-SIG-Mac] testing/asserting case sensitivity
Sent: 17 January 2026 21:57
To: r-sig-mac at r-project.org <r-sig-mac at r-project.org>
Cc: Bio 708 <bio708qmee at gmail.com>
Subject: [R-SIG-Mac] testing/asserting case sensitivity
I have a problem/annoyance with students who are working on MacOS and sharing Git repositories with data file and code where the strings used in their code to designate the data files are not case-matched to the actual names of the files on disk. They don't notice this because they're using a case-insensitive file system on MacOS, but it bites me when I try to run the code on my Linux system. I can of course tell them to be more careful, but: is there any kind of programmatic check for this that they could use when testing their code before submission? (Students are not super-technically savvy, so telling them to adjust the properties of their file systems, even if it's something that's possible, is not a realistic option; neither is telling them to use GitHub Actions to run checks elsewhere ...) I'm imagining (ideally) some kind of _CHECK_CASE_STRICTLY_ environment variable/options setting/etc., but I'd be interested in any creative solutions. Tangentially related: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1ha36y5/macos_apfs_caseinsensitive_and_handling_git_repo/ cheers Ben Bolker -- Dr. Benjamin Bolker Professor, Mathematics & Statistics and Biology, McMaster University Associate Chair (Graduate), Department of Mathematics & Statistics Director, School of Computational Science and Engineering > E-mail is sent at my convenience; I don't expect replies outside of working hours. _______________________________________________ R-SIG-Mac mailing list R-SIG-Mac at r-project.org https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac