David Bovill wrote:
> At the risk of suffering everlasting shame, here is another:
> on the Mac, when you set the file type and creator types with
> whatever utility, aren't you adding a resource to the resource
> fork of the file.
Sort of. You are actually changing two fields in the file header, which
all Mac files have regardless of whether or not they contain a resource
fork. There usually is an associated resource with the same name as the
creator somewhere (usually inside the application) but that is a
seperate issue.
> Why is there no way of adding this same piece of binary
> information to the file when it is saved on other platforms?
Because other platforms (ie DOS, Windows, Unix) have neither the
resource fork nor the creator/type fields. (There can be creator-type
data for files, eg .exe files under DOS all start with "MZ" but this is
stored inside the file, not seperately.)
Other platforms use all sorts of tricks to associate data files with
executables, but at the end of the day they are all *tricks*. Only on
the Mac are the creator and type of a file seperate pieces of
information from either the file name or the internal contents of the
file.
--
Steven D'Aprano
==========================================
M.B. Sales Pty Ltd Ph: +61 3 9460-5244
A.C.N. 005-964-796 Fax: +61 3 9462-1161
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard%40lists.best.com/
Info: http://www.xworlds.com/metacard/mailinglist.htm
Please send bug reports to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, not this list.
