Re: [NTLK] Newton packages versus OS X packages

From: Michael J. Hußmann (michael_at_michael-hussmann.de)
Date: Sun Feb 20 2005 - 16:13:45 PST


David M. Ensteness (denstene_at_mac.com) wrote:

> Apple *has* moved to UNIX. And correct, UNIX doesn't care about type
> and creator codes because UNIX does not deal with forked files.

No, forked files have nothing to do with type and creator codes (a common
misconception). There's the data fork, the resource fork, and then
there's meta data such as type and creator codes. You can have non-forked
files and still maintain type and creator codes, or have forked files and
rely just on extensions.

> but also supports metadata in the form of type and creator
> codes which are stored in the resource fork of a forked file.

Meta data are not stored within the resource fork. Kill the resource
fork, if you wish, and all the meta data is still there.

> I do not know enough about the Newton FS to know if Newton manages its
> soups and packages via forked files

NOS doesn't support files, much less forked files. And Newton package
files on the Mac have no resource fork.

> The issue is that since Macintosh and Mac OS X are the only operating
> systems that support forked files, non-Mac OS X UNIX/Linux systems,
> Windows systems, etc ... all just ignore the resource fork and during a
> file transfer the resource fork is not copied.

So what? There's nothing in the resource fork to begin with, so nothing's
lost.

> And if you need some evidence that Apple *is not* getting
> rid of type and creator codes, they also included the UNIX command
> maccp (or is it cpmac, I can't seem to remember its exact name, not
> sure if its included by default install but it is included with the dev
> tools] which does copy the resource fork.

I know, but that is irrelevant with respect to the issue at hand.

- Michael

Michael J. Hussmann

E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW (personal): http://michael-hussmann.de
WWW (professional): http://digicam-experts.de

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