{I earlier posted this to darwin-userlevel but was advised this would be a
better place to ask.}
Is there any way to create an alternative path to a directory, that will remain
valid even if the directory is moved?
Here’s my issue: I’m using a 3rd party database library [not sqlite!] that is
heavily reliant on paths, to the extent that it gets extremely confused if you
move database files while they’re open. This conflicts with my wanting to use
such databases in (bundle-based) Mac OS documents, which the user could locate
in the Finder and drag to another folder at any time. The best workaround I can
think of is to give the database some alternative path that points to the doc
bundle dir but will still work even after the directory is moved.
Now, FSRefs aren’t paths but they also have the property that they work even
when a directory is moved. I dimly remember from the early days of OS X that
there was a form of path used internally by FSRefs, something like
“/.volfs/dirid” where ‘dirid’ is the numeric HFS directory ID. Does this still
work?
Otherwise, the only other way I can think of is to create a hard-link to the
directory at some temporary location and use that path instead. [But I’ve been
told that hard-linking dirs isn’t possible in general, only on Time Machine
backup volumes.]
(There’s also the option of watching FSEvents to notice when the directory has
been moved. There are obvious race conditions associated with this, though; I’m
not going there.)
—Jens
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Filesystem-dev mailing list ([email protected])
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/filesystem-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
This email sent to [email protected]
