What casing is a driveletter

Question

is it uppercased C:\ or lowercased c:\ ?

We tried to come up with a conclusion, only argument is that that MS displays uppercase (C:)

Its not what is technically correct, its a matter of arguments choosing what to use when creating config file or hardcode other path info's e.g in a deployment script.

Answer 1

It's not case sensitive, in my experience. Windows in general isn't.

Answer 2

Tradition states that the drive letter is displayed in an uppercase fashion when appropriate, but in actuality on Windows systems the drive letter is case-insensitive. So if you have to pick one for your own application, go ahead and use uppercase but make sure that you accept both lower- and uppercase versions when you're accepting paths.

Answer 3

Historically the drive letter would be uppercase, but over time systems have become less case-sensitive. Apple originally used drive numbers, but DOS in various incarnations has had letters since the beginning. I can reference older manuals that always show drive letters as numbers or uppercase, i.e. the TRS-80 manual for connecting drive D below vs. the IIgs manual with drives 1 and 2.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=51954

http://www.oldskool.org/guides/tvdog/documents.html (file 25-1026.zip)

Answer 4

I would say uppercase. The Windows Explorer shell in Vista displays C:\ and D:\ and the command prompt also says C:\

Answer 5

Capitalizing the drive letter would be akin to capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a sentence or the first letter in a name. I think that would be my preference, from a readability perspective.