The question you need the filesystem to answer in this case is, "If I save a file with name A, will it be accessible via name B?" You can't assume that the file

The question you need the filesystem to answer in this case is, "If I save a file with name A, will it be accessible via name B?" You can't assume that the filesystem has one canonical name from which the file will be accessed. EDIT: That actually isn't even enough, because the answer may vary by locale. Even worse, to solve this for Git's case, you need to know the answer 1) For every locale 2) For every supported filesystem