c programming: program reads 'Desktop' folder as 'DEsktop' with capital E - c

Question

So the C program i am building has to be placed within the PA_mobile file on the desktop of my MAC computer (OS X 10.9.4) so it can access the scripts and text file caches that are associated with it.
now when my program launches, it validates the current working directory, comparing it to a string variable which contains the correct working directory, and requests a working directory change if the program is not located in the desktop.
here is the code associated with the directory path validation:
char* cwd_2;
char buff[PATH_MAX + 1];
cwd_2 = getcwd( buff, PATH_MAX + 1 );
char desired_working_directory[50] = "/Users/haydn/Desktop/PA_mobile";
if( cwd_2 != NULL )
{
printf("\n-----------------------------------");
printf("\nCurrent working directory: [%s]\n", cwd_2 );
usleep(10000);
printf("Desired working directory: [%s]\n",desired_working_directory);
usleep(50000);
if(strcmp(desired_working_directory, cwd_2) == 0)
{
fflush(stdout);
printf("Appropriate Working Directory achieved!\n");
printf("-----------------------------------");
}
else
{
printf("Critical Error: inapropriate working directory!\n");
printf("please relocate the 'PA_mobile' file to [/users/user/Desktop] and re-launch\n");
getchar();
exit();
}
}
The program compares the current working directory path as determined by the cwd_2 variable and compares it to the desired working directory path as described in the desired_working_directory variable.
Now here is what the program displays when run:
-----------------------------------
Current working directory: [/users/haydn/DEsktop/PA_mobile]
Desired working directory: [/Users/haydn/Desktop/PA_mobile]
Critical Error: inapropriate working directory!
please relocate file to [/users/haydn/Desktop] and re-launch
Notice that the current working directory displayed (which is determined by the getcwd( buff, PATH_MAX + 1 ); function describes the desktop file as DEsktop instead of Desktop as it is meant to be. i have checked the actual desktop folder, it is spelt without a capital E, and the capital E appears to be causing the problem, and exists solely within this code, can anyone help me?

Answer 1

If you run diskutil list / (or diskutil info / on latter variants of Mac OSX) you'll see whether the file system is case sensitive or not. You may need to do it on a file system lower in the hierarchy than / if those directories are in a separate file system.
You could also try the following sequence of commands:
touch /Users/haydn/Desktop/xyzzy
touch /Users/haydn/Desktop/xyzzY
ls /Users/haydn/Desktop/xyzz*
and see how many files are there. One means case-insensitive, two means case sensitive.
It's the file system personality that dictates this and, unless it mentions case sensitivity, you can assume it's not.
In which case, there is no distinction between these:
/users/haydn/DEsktop/PA_mobile
/Users/haydn/Desktop/PA_mobile
^ ^
despite the differing letters.
If you've established that this is the problem, your code should really be adjusted to handle both cases. This question (and its answers) offer ways to do this from within your code.