区分大小写，带有python 2.7.15中模块和文件的名称

Question

I have encountered a rather funny situation: I work in a big scientific collaboration whose major software package is based on C++ and python (2.7.15 still). This collaboration also has multiple servers (SL6) to run the framework on. Since I joined the collaboration recently, I received instructions on how to set up the software and run it. All works perfectly on the server. Now, there are reasons not to connect to the server to do simple tasks or code development, instead it is preferrable to do these kind of things on your local laptop. Thus, I set up a virtual machine (docker) according to a recipe I received, installed a couple of things (fuse, cvmfs, docker images, etc.) and in this way managed to connect my MacBook (OSX 10.14.2) to the server where some of the libraries need to be sourced in order for the software to be compiled and run. And after 2h it does compile! So far so good..

Now comes the fun part: you run the software by executing a specific python script which is fed as argument another python script. Not funny yet. But somewhere in this big list of python scripts sourcing one another, there is a very simple task:

import logging
variable = logging.DEBUG

This is written inside a script that is called Logging.py. So the script and library only are different by the first letter: l or L. On the server, this runs perfectly smooth. On my local VM set up, I get the error

AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'DEBUG'

I checked the python versions ( which python ) and the location of the logging library ( print logging.__file__ ), and in both set ups I get the same result for both commands. So the same python version is run, and the same logging library is sourced but in one case there is a mix up with the name of the file that sources the library.

So I am wondering, if there is some "convention file" (like a .vimrc for vi) sourced somewhere where this issue could be resolved by setting some tolerance parameter to some other value...?

Thanks a lot for the help! conni

Answer 1

as others have said, OSX treats names as case-insensitive by default, so the Python bundled logging module will be confused with your Logging.py file. I'd suggest the better fix would be to get the Logging.py file renamed, as this would improve compatibility of the code base. otherwise, you could create a "Case-sensitive" APFS file system using "Disk Utility"

if you go with creating a file system, I'd suggest not changing the root/system partition to case-sensitive as this will break various programs in subtle ways. you could either repartition your disk and create a case-sensitive filesystem, or create an "Image" (this might be slower, not sure how much) and work in there. Just make sure you pick the "APFS (Case-sensitive)" format when creating the filesystem!