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Old December 14th 17, 06:35 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.apps,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.system
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Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

| The type of a file and which app you'd like it to open with are
| items
| of file metadata and have no business being part of the filename.

| Many files have such type-identifiers included. E.g., a JPG file begins
| with JFIF, a WordPerfect file includes WPC in the first line, an MS
| .doc

| Then you've put the metadata inside the file, which is even worse. It
| should be part of the file system.

This is the problem with mixing Mac and Windows
discussions. As I understand it, Mac stores file data
separately as a "resource fork".

No, you have it back to front. File data went in the data fork,
metadata went in the resource fork.


no it didn't.

metadata was kept in the file system.

the resource fork (which was optional, as was the data fork) held
various resources. it was basically a miniature database.

a zero-length file would have an empty data *and* resource fork. rare,
but possible.

Unfortunately Apple has abandoned
this idea and settled for the lowest-common-denominator approach, and
w're all the worse off for it.


yep.


Educate me.


pay me and perhaps i will.

or, educate yourself. the information in published and has been for
several decades.

What's the advantage of the "forks"?


many, some of which have been mentioned in this very thread.

As described, it looks
like metadata with a fancy name, apparently conceived as attached to or
pointed to by the file. Presumably it's stored separately from the file.


read it again, because that's wrong.
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