CAPITAL/lowercase letters in file names 1

[EvanDH]

Hi All,

I've been asked to standardize all of my SolidWorks parts and assemblies to contain ONLY upper case letters in the filenames. So I went through each part and assembly, and did any required renaming via "Solidworks Re-name" in the SolidWorks Explorer. Each case actually requires renaming twice, since only changing the case of the letters is not recognized as a name change.

As I open up assemblies containing the parts or subassemblies, whose name went from [containing lower case letters] to [containing capital letters only], I observe two cases:

- About half the time, there are no issues, and the part/assem name is correctly displayed on the design tree with its capital letter-only name.

- The other ~half of the time, the capital letters are not reflected in the name on the design tree: they're still lower case.

Everything I can come up yields no good results: the name is "stuck" being displayed in the tree as lowercase. I'm a bit compulsive and this is driving me absolutely crazy. Moreover, it's just disturbing: I cannot figure out what I am doing to generate two different results as the renaming procedure for each item, from my view, is completely identical. So my question is two-fold: Why might this be happening? And what can I do to get the design tree to display the actual filename, inclusive of capital/lower case detail?

Thanks!

 

[drawoh]

EvanDH,

In Microsoft Windows, filenames are not case sensitive. In UNIX or Linux, they are, and your changes would have worked reliably.

Try completely renaming your files, then renaming them again to your upper-case filename. This works for me.

JHG

 

[EvanDH]

Hi drawoh -

Thanks for the reply. I know that Windows filenames are not case sensitive and that I have to completely rename and then rename back to original but in upper-case; and I have been doing this.
(I'd tried conveying this, albeit poorly, with "Each case actually requires renaming twice, since only changing the case of the letters is not recognized as a name change.")

The problem remains: after all that has been done, ie after the filename has been capitalized - sometimes the change is reflected in the SolidWorks design tree, sometimes it is not. I am trying to find out what I have to do, to ensure that what shows up in the design tree always matches the filename's state of capitalization.

 

[EvanDH]

I'm bad at explaining things so these screenshots might help clarify.

Every file in this assembly got a name change, I did them all the same way one right after another. But only certain ones (CENTER-DOOR-A1, DOOR-CLIP-A1, DOOR-MAGNET, 4-38-PANSQSMS-94155A090) display the update in the reference list and design tree.

If it always worked- that'd be great. If it never worked- I'd be OK with that too.

But this: Sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn't - what the heck?! Very unsettling and confusing.

 

[EvanDH]

here's the second screenshot

 

[AnnaWood]

Try a Ctrl-Q rebuild....

Cheers,

Anna Wood
SW2011 SP5, Windows 7 x64

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[mjcole]

Evan,

This is one of the few cases where doing a rename in windows wouldn't cause any problems because the filenames haven't actually been modified in a true sense. You may be able to save a bunch of time using the easiest method possible.

I'd like to meet the genius at your company who requested this dumb CaPiToLiZaTiOn sTaNdArD. Seems like a waste of time to me. If capitalization. Since Unix is case sensitive you could have the following part names and lead to a situation like the following giving you 2ⁿ filenames with same letters and varied capitalization where n is the filename length.

abc.sldprt
Abc.sldprt
aBc.sldprt
abC.sldprt
ABc.sldprt
aBC.sldprt
AbC.sldprt
ABC.sldprt

Talk about having duplicate filenames. You can't use a " in filenames but you can use 2 single ' ' quotes side by side to get the same thing. There is really no need for super descriptive filenames to be used if files have property values they can be sorted by. Just look at your file names on your apple media devices if you have one of the scarce few of those in existence Au7G.mp3 etc.

Does anyone here have one of those CTRL+Q T shirts I saw at a SWW in the past? Just curious.

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[tristram]

What you are seeing in the feature tree is not the file name, it is the component name.
In the feature tree right click on the offending parts "I think it's under properties, but I'm not sitting in front of my CAD station to check" and make sure the "update component name when file changes" or something to that effect.
You can also check to make sure the component in the feature tree is pointing to the correct file and just manually change component name.

-Joe
SolidWorks 2011 x64 SP 4 on Windows XP x64
8 GB RAM - Nvidia Quadro FX1700

 

[TheTick]

I can think of only two reasons for mandatory capitaliztion: BOM and OCD.

For the first, I recommend not using the file name directly in the BOM (use a property).

For the second, I recommend placing the person elsewhere.

 

[EvanDH]

Thanks tristram, didn't realize I had control over the component name displayed there.

 

[kellnerp]

And of course this problem all goes away when you stop depending on meaningful filenames for parts, use serialized numerical filenames and put the meaningful stuff in the description, capitalized which you can then search and not have to worry about accidentally giving two files the same name.

TOP
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