Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
SOLVED
This works just as it should. For reasons that I thought were valid at the
time (I no longer think so) I had this code in writeSafelyToURL: right after
the writeTofile: command. What was strange was the url was valid because I was
storing the bookmark after the file was successfully written to the hard drive
but I guess there wasn't enough information in the file yet to make a valid
reference (bookmark). I moved it farther down the line with the exact same
code and everything worked fine.
Thank you for all your help.
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:43 PM, Noah Desch wrote:
Are you sure the data is being stored into your note dictionary correctly?
Here is my bookmark resolution code, it looks almost exactly like yours. I'm
running on 10.6.3 and building for 10.6 with GC off.
- (NSURL *)resolveBookmarkData:(NSData *)bookmark
withOptions:(NSURLBookmarkResolutionOptions)options needsUpdate:(BOOL *)stale
{
NSURL *url;
NSError *error;
NSMutableDictionary *userInfo;
error = Nil;
*stale = NO;
url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmark options:options
relativeToURL:Nil bookmarkDataIsStale:stale error:error];
if ( url ) {
return url;
}
if ( error [[error domain] isEqualTo:NSCocoaErrorDomain] [error
code] == NSFileNoSuchFileError ) {
// error presentation and resolution code follows...
-Noah
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:08 PM, Brad Stone wrote:
The error comes back file does not exist and the NSLog statement shows
url = (null) after I change the name of the file in the Finder. If I
change the file name back to what it was when the bookmark was saved the
file opens fine. I changed my creation option to 0. No difference.
NSData *bookmarkData = [note valueForKey:@bookmarkData];
NSError *error = nil;
BOOL isStale;
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmarkData
options:0 relativeToURL:nil bookmarkDataIsStale:isStale error:error];
NSLog(@url = %@, [url description]);
if (error != nil) {
[NSApp presentError:error];
}
On Apr 18, 2010, at 11:45 AM, Noah Desch wrote:
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Brad Stone wrote:
I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table:
NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL
bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile
includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil
relativeToURL:nil
error:error];
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table: NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil relativeToURL:nil error:error]; When the user double clicks on the row in the table I want to open the file. I use this: NSError *error; BOOL isStale; NSURL *url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmarkData options:NSURLBookmarkResolutionWithoutUI relativeToURL:nil bookmarkDataIsStale:isStale error:error]; When the file's name or directory changes on my hard drive the resolved url == nil. I'd like it to resolve to the actual file even if my app is closed and opened again (I'm saving the bookmarkData to repopulate the table the next time the user opens my app). I thought that's what bookmarks did in 10.6 - I could be wrong. An ugly workaround would be when the user double-clicks for me to create an actual alias file in a temp folder from the bookmark data and store that in my array, recreate it in a temp folder and launch that. I'm sure that's wrong - there has got to be a better way. On Apr 3, 2010, at 6:55 PM, Ken Thomases wrote: On Apr 3, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Brad Stone wrote: I want to store a reference to a file in an ivar that will allow the user to change the file's name and/or the directory (i.e. the path) and still allow me to access it. I don't want to create a file (like an ailas). I need to store the file reference in a variable so I can open the file no matter where the user moves it or renames it. FSRefs have the property you desire. As of Snow Leopard, though, the new recommended technique is to use a file reference NSURL. Check the NSURL documentation and also: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html Note that an alias _record_ is different from an alias _file_. An alias record is data in memory and is suitable for this purpose, but perhaps overkill. As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data, but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.) Cheers, Ken ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Brad Stone wrote: I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table: NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil relativeToURL:nil error:error]; I am doing the same thing and it is still able to resolve the bookmarks when the file moves or its name changes. The only real difference I can see between our two approaches is that I am passing 0 for both the creation options and the resolution options. What are the properties of the error object are you getting when the bookmark resolution fails? -Noah ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
The error comes back file does not exist and the NSLog statement shows url =
(null) after I change the name of the file in the Finder. If I change the
file name back to what it was when the bookmark was saved the file opens fine.
I changed my creation option to 0. No difference.
NSData *bookmarkData = [note valueForKey:@bookmarkData];
NSError *error = nil;
BOOL isStale;
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmarkData
options:0 relativeToURL:nil bookmarkDataIsStale:isStale error:error];
NSLog(@url = %@, [url description]);
if (error != nil) {
[NSApp presentError:error];
}
On Apr 18, 2010, at 11:45 AM, Noah Desch wrote:
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Brad Stone wrote:
I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table:
NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL
bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile
includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil
relativeToURL:nil
error:error];
I am doing the same thing and it is still able to resolve the bookmarks when
the file moves or its name changes. The only real difference I can see
between our two approaches is that I am passing 0 for both the creation
options and the resolution options.
What are the properties of the error object are you getting when the bookmark
resolution fails?
-Noah
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 18, 2010, at 9:43 AM, Brad Stone wrote: I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table: NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil relativeToURL:nil error:error]; When the user double clicks on the row in the table I want to open the file. I use this: NSError *error; BOOL isStale; NSURL *url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmarkData options:NSURLBookmarkResolutionWithoutUI relativeToURL:nil bookmarkDataIsStale:isStale error:error]; When the file's name or directory changes on my hard drive the resolved url == nil. I'd like it to resolve to the actual file even if my app is closed and opened again (I'm saving the bookmarkData to repopulate the table the next time the user opens my app). I thought that's what bookmarks did in 10.6 - I could be wrong. An ugly workaround would be when the user double-clicks for me to create an actual alias file in a temp folder from the bookmark data and store that in my array, recreate it in a temp folder and launch that. I'm sure that's wrong - there has got to be a better way. Hmm... have you tried converting the URL to a file reference URL first via its -fileReferenceURL method, and then generating a bookmark from that? Charles___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
Are you sure the data is being stored into your note dictionary correctly?
Here is my bookmark resolution code, it looks almost exactly like yours. I'm
running on 10.6.3 and building for 10.6 with GC off.
- (NSURL *)resolveBookmarkData:(NSData *)bookmark
withOptions:(NSURLBookmarkResolutionOptions)options needsUpdate:(BOOL *)stale
{
NSURL *url;
NSError *error;
NSMutableDictionary *userInfo;
error = Nil;
*stale = NO;
url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmark options:options
relativeToURL:Nil bookmarkDataIsStale:stale error:error];
if ( url ) {
return url;
}
if ( error [[error domain] isEqualTo:NSCocoaErrorDomain] [error
code] == NSFileNoSuchFileError ) {
// error presentation and resolution code follows...
-Noah
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:08 PM, Brad Stone wrote:
The error comes back file does not exist and the NSLog statement shows url
= (null) after I change the name of the file in the Finder. If I change the
file name back to what it was when the bookmark was saved the file opens
fine. I changed my creation option to 0. No difference.
NSData *bookmarkData = [note valueForKey:@bookmarkData];
NSError *error = nil;
BOOL isStale;
NSURL *url = [NSURL URLByResolvingBookmarkData:bookmarkData
options:0 relativeToURL:nil bookmarkDataIsStale:isStale error:error];
NSLog(@url = %@, [url description]);
if (error != nil) {
[NSApp presentError:error];
}
On Apr 18, 2010, at 11:45 AM, Noah Desch wrote:
On Apr 18, 2010, at 10:43 AM, Brad Stone wrote:
I'm storing the bookmark data in an array displayed in a table:
NSData *bookmarkData = [inAbsoluteURL
bookmarkDataWithOptions:NSURLBookmarkCreationSuitableForBookmarkFile
includingResourceValuesForKeys:nil
relativeToURL:nil
error:error];
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
Le 4 avr. 2010 à 19:50, Jens Alfke a écrit :
You're saying that if I have a FSRef to a file, then the file is moved, the
FSRef will still reference the moved file and not the location where it used
to be?
That's surprising to me, because FSRefs were created as a replacement for
FSSpecs, which do not have that property (they were a struct {volume ID, dir
ID, filename}.)
Anyway, note that a file inode ID is more fragile than an alias/bookmark,
because it won't survive the common practice of replacing an old copy of a
file with a new one (safe save) unless the code doing the replace is
careful to propagate metadata to the new file.
FSExchangeObjects and exchangedata(2) do not exchange the file ID.
The new file will have the same ID than the old one, and so, the FSRef will
point on the new file automatically.
-- Jean-Daniel
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
At 9:54 AM +0200 4/6/10, Jean-Daniel Dupas wrote:
Le 4 avr. 2010 à 19:50, Jens Alfke a écrit :
You're saying that if I have a FSRef to a file, then the file is moved, the
FSRef will still reference the moved file and not the location where it used
to be?
That's surprising to me, because FSRefs were created as a replacement for
FSSpecs, which do not have that property (they were a struct {volume ID, dir
ID, filename}.)
Anyway, note that a file inode ID is more fragile than an alias/bookmark,
because it won't survive the common practice of replacing an old copy of a
file with a new one (safe save) unless the code doing the replace is
careful to propagate metadata to the new file.
FSExchangeObjects and exchangedata(2) do not exchange the file ID.
The new file will have the same ID than the old one, and so, the FSRef will
point on the new file automatically.
Unfortunately, FSRefs don't survive the common practice of manually replacing
the file in the Finder. This *does* change the file id and invalidates the
FSRef. I had to change to explicitly saving an AliasRecord in an NSData to keep
track of a file properly.
Jon
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
At 8:43 AM -0700 4/6/10, Jon Pugh wrote:
I had to change to explicitly saving an AliasRecord in an NSData to keep track
of a file properly.
I should probably clean up and share my code too. This uses an alias relative
to your home folder. The alias is stored in NSUserDefaults under the specified
key. You probably want to retain or copy the path you get from loadPathFromKey
since it's autoreleased or nil.
Enjoy.
Jon
- (void) savePath: (NSString*) path forKey: (NSString*) key
{
FSRef fsFile, fsHome;
AliasHandle aliasHandle;
NSString* homePath = [@~ stringByExpandingTildeInPath];
OSStatus status = FSPathMakeRef((unsigned char*)[homePath
cStringUsingEncoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding], fsHome, NULL);
NSAssert(status == 0, @FSPathMakeRef fsHome failed);
status = FSPathMakeRef((unsigned char*)[path cStringUsingEncoding:
NSUTF8StringEncoding], fsFile, NULL);
NSAssert(status == 0, @FSPathMakeRef failed);
OSErr err = FSNewAlias(fsHome, fsFile, aliasHandle);
NSAssert(err == noErr, @FSNewAlias failed);
NSData* aliasData = [NSData dataWithBytes: *aliasHandle length:
GetAliasSize(aliasHandle)];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject: aliasData forKey:
key];
}
- (NSString*) loadPathFromKey: (NSString*) key
{
NSData* aliasData = [[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] dataForKey:
key];
int aliasLen = [aliasData length];
if (aliasLen 0)
{
FSRef fsFile, fsHome;
AliasHandle aliasHandle;
OSErr err = PtrToHand([aliasData bytes], (Handle*)aliasHandle,
aliasLen);
NSAssert(err == noErr, @PtrToHand failed);
NSString* homePath = [@~ stringByExpandingTildeInPath];
OSStatus status = FSPathMakeRef((unsigned char*)[homePath
cStringUsingEncoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding], fsHome, NULL);
NSAssert(status == 0, @FSPathMakeRef fsHome failed);
Boolean changed;
err = FSResolveAlias(fsHome, aliasHandle, fsFile, changed);
if (err == noErr)
{
char pathC[2*1024];
status = FSRefMakePath(fsFile, (UInt8*) pathC,
sizeof(pathC));
NSAssert(status == 0, @FSRefMakePath failed);
return [NSString stringWithCString: pathC encoding:
NSUTF8StringEncoding];
}
}
else
{
NSLog(@CardCollectionUserDefault was zero length);
[NSAlert alertWithMessageText: nil
defaultButton: nil
alternateButton: nil
otherButton: nil
informativeTextWithFormat: @CardCollectionUserDefault
was zero length];
}
return nil;
}
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Sat, 3 Apr 2010 18:31:03 -0700, Jens Alfke said: Brad, what you want is a bookmark (in 10.6) or an alias reference. Aliases didn't have a Cocoa API until 10.6, but the procedural API isn't hard to use. There is the 3rd party NDAlias wrapper, which works quite well: http://github.com/nathanday/ndalias On Sun, 4 Apr 2010 12:28:59 -0500, Ken Thomases said: Sorry. I probably shouldn't have said deprecated. Aliases are not officially deprecated, as far as I know. Perhaps superseded is a better word. It likely won't be deprecated for a long long time either, just like the Resource Manager. Many file formats (including QuickTime's .mov) store aliases and so Apple needs to keep this functionality forever. -- Sean McBride, B. Eng s...@rogue-research.com Rogue Researchwww.rogue-research.com Mac Software Developer Montréal, Québec, Canada ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 3, 2010, at 8:31 PM, Jens Alfke wrote: Ken, he asked for a reference that wouldn't break if the file were moved or renamed. Neither FSrefs nor URLs have that property. Yes, they do. From the link I gave http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html: File reference URLs provide a way to track a file by its ID. This means that the reference is valid even if the file’s name or location in the file system changes. File reference URLs are new with Snow Leopard. Check out the release notes and What's New in Mac OS X: Mac OS X 10.6 to learn about them. And FSRefs have always had this property. Adding file reference URLs was essentially a way of allowing URLs to provide analogous functionality as FSRefs. Regards, Ken ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
Ken Thomases k...@codeweavers.com wrote: As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data, but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.) Having missed the introduction of the new bookmark routines, and having not gotten any warnings in my code, I was a bit surprised to read that alias records are deprecated. From a quick scan, it looks like the bookmark methods are wrappers around the alias manager with (after about 20 years) an official mechanism for creating Finder alias files. G ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 4, 2010, at 12:06 PM, Gregory Weston wrote: Ken Thomases k...@codeweavers.com wrote: As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data, but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.) Having missed the introduction of the new bookmark routines, and having not gotten any warnings in my code, I was a bit surprised to read that alias records are deprecated. Sorry. I probably shouldn't have said deprecated. Aliases are not officially deprecated, as far as I know. Perhaps superseded is a better word. Bookmarks are clearly the new Apple-preferred way of achieving what used to be done with aliases. From a quick scan, it looks like the bookmark methods are wrappers around the alias manager with (after about 20 years) an official mechanism for creating Finder alias files. Well, conceptually, bookmarks are a superset of alias records. However, I believe that they have separate representations. In particular, some of the documentation mentions that alias files created using the bookmark API contain both the bookmark data and the old-style alias record, separately. Also, bookmark data records some of the file properties so you can query them without having to resolve or access the original file. Regards, Ken ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
You're saying that if I have a FSRef to a file, then the file is moved, the
FSRef will still reference the moved file and not the location where it used to
be?
That's surprising to me, because FSRefs were created as a replacement for
FSSpecs, which do not have that property (they were a struct {volume ID, dir
ID, filename}.)
Anyway, note that a file inode ID is more fragile than an alias/bookmark,
because it won't survive the common practice of replacing an old copy of a file
with a new one (safe save) unless the code doing the replace is careful to
propagate metadata to the new file.
--Jens {via iPad}
On Apr 4, 2010, at 8:00 AM, Ken Thomases k...@codeweavers.com wrote:
On Apr 3, 2010, at 8:31 PM, Jens Alfke wrote:
Ken, he asked for a reference that wouldn't break if the file were moved or
renamed. Neither FSrefs nor URLs have that property.
Yes, they do.
From the link I gave
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html:
File reference URLs provide a way to track a file by its ID. This means that
the reference is valid even if the file’s name or location in the file system
changes.
File reference URLs are new with Snow Leopard. Check out the release notes
and What's New in Mac OS X: Mac OS X 10.6 to learn about them.
And FSRefs have always had this property. Adding file reference URLs was
essentially a way of allowing URLs to provide analogous functionality as
FSRefs.
Regards,
Ken
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 4, 2010, at 12:50 PM, Jens Alfke wrote:
You're saying that if I have a FSRef to a file, then the file is moved, the
FSRef will still reference the moved file and not the location where it used
to be?
Yes. They are file-ID-based.
That's surprising to me, because FSRefs were created as a replacement for
FSSpecs, which do not have that property (they were a struct {volume ID, dir
ID, filename}.)
True, although FSSpecs should have tracked the parent directory should it have
been moved or renamed. I'm not sure they did, though.
Also, remember that, unlike FSSpecs, FSRefs can only refer to existing
files/directories -- precisely because they are file-ID-based.
It's hardly surprising that the replacement differs from the original,
otherwise why replace the original?
Cheers,
Ken
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Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 4, 2010, at 12:50 PM, Jens Alfke wrote:
You're saying that if I have a FSRef to a file, then the file is moved, the
FSRef will still reference the moved file and not the location where it used
to be?
That's surprising to me, because FSRefs were created as a replacement for
FSSpecs, which do not have that property (they were a struct {volume ID, dir
ID, filename}.)
Anyway, note that a file inode ID is more fragile than an alias/bookmark,
because it won't survive the common practice of replacing an old copy of a
file with a new one (safe save) unless the code doing the replace is
careful to propagate metadata to the new file.
--Jens {via iPad}
This is the way FSRefs work. However, AliasRecords always contained both the
path *and* the file ID. I believe it used the path first, and if it didn’t find
a file there, then it fell back on the file ID. There were, of course, ways to
alter this default behavior, such as the kResolveAliasTryFileIDFirst flag,
which reversed the default resolution behavior, and the FSNewAliasMinimal()
function, which left out one of the two ways of finding the file (I think it
kept the file ID and left out the path, but I could be misremembering). Anyway,
I’d be pretty surprised if the new bookmark feature didn’t also include this
functionality.
By the way, it’s not the file inode ID that a FSRef points to, it’s the catalog
node ID. The ID is actually a property of the catalog B-tree node rather than
the file itself - if you have a file that has multiple hard links, each hard
link will have the same inode but a different CNID.
Charles___
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How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
I want to store a reference to a file in an ivar that will allow the user to change the file's name and/or the directory (i.e. the path) and still allow me to access it. I don't want to create a file (like an ailas). I need to store the file reference in a variable so I can open the file no matter where the user moves it or renames it. For those of you who know REALbasic I can do this easily with FolderItem.GetSaveInfo. How can I do this in Cocoa? Thanks___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
On Apr 3, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Brad Stone wrote: I want to store a reference to a file in an ivar that will allow the user to change the file's name and/or the directory (i.e. the path) and still allow me to access it. I don't want to create a file (like an ailas). I need to store the file reference in a variable so I can open the file no matter where the user moves it or renames it. FSRefs have the property you desire. As of Snow Leopard, though, the new recommended technique is to use a file reference NSURL. Check the NSURL documentation and also: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html Note that an alias _record_ is different from an alias _file_. An alias record is data in memory and is suitable for this purpose, but perhaps overkill. As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data, but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.) Cheers, Ken ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
Very interesting. According to the documentation if I want to store the reference and want it to persist after a reboot I need to do a bookmark. You should not store or archive file reference URLs. A file’s ID may be different for different boots of the operating system. If you need to store a URL, see “Working with Bookmarks and Aliases.” THANK YOU so much for pointing me in the correct direction. On Apr 3, 2010, at 6:55 PM, Ken Thomases wrote: On Apr 3, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Brad Stone wrote: I want to store a reference to a file in an ivar that will allow the user to change the file's name and/or the directory (i.e. the path) and still allow me to access it. I don't want to create a file (like an ailas). I need to store the file reference in a variable so I can open the file no matter where the user moves it or renames it. FSRefs have the property you desire. As of Snow Leopard, though, the new recommended technique is to use a file reference NSURL. Check the NSURL documentation and also: http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html Note that an alias _record_ is different from an alias _file_. An alias record is data in memory and is suitable for this purpose, but perhaps overkill. As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data, but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.) Cheers, Ken ___ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: How do I get a file reference w/o relying on the path?
Ken, he asked for a reference that wouldn't break if the file were moved or
renamed. Neither FSrefs nor URLs have that property.
Brad, what you want is a bookmark (in 10.6) or an alias reference. Aliases
didn't have a Cocoa API until 10.6, but the procedural API isn't hard to use.
--Jens {via iPad}
On Apr 3, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Ken Thomases k...@codeweavers.com wrote:
On Apr 3, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Brad Stone wrote:
I want to store a reference to a file in an ivar that will allow the user to
change the file's name and/or the directory (i.e. the path) and still allow
me to access it. I don't want to create a file (like an ailas). I need to
store the file reference in a variable so I can open the file no matter
where the user moves it or renames it.
FSRefs have the property you desire. As of Snow Leopard, though, the new
recommended technique is to use a file reference NSURL. Check the NSURL
documentation and also:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/LowLevelFileMgmt/Articles/FileManagementNSURL.html
Note that an alias _record_ is different from an alias _file_. An alias
record is data in memory and is suitable for this purpose, but perhaps
overkill.
As of Snow Leopard, alias records are deprecated in favor of bookmark data,
but, again, it's probably overkill. (Both alias records and bookmark data
are more suitable if the reference is to be persisted for use by a later
process. Also, both can apply more robust searching heuristics to find an
appropriate file even if it isn't the original. For example, if the original
is deleted and replaced with a new file of the same name.)
Cheers,
Ken
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