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Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?



 
 
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  #106  
Old December 16th 17, 02:06 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"Tim Streater" wrote |

| Content Disposition
| *can* be used to send creation/modification date.
| I've never actually seen it done. It's certainly not
| required.
|
| I never said it was required. I added it to my email client because I'd
| seen those fields arriving in some content-disposition headers.
|

That's very different from the idea that an email
client is "rubbish" if it doesn't do it. I have OE and
TBird here. Neither one sets to mod date. Not that
I'd mind if they did, but I can't say I'd ever noticed
one way or the other. If someone sends me a photo
of their new baby it's not particularly relevant to
me what day they took the photo.


And the date-of-taking would probably be embedded in the file anyway,
these days (and for the last several years).
[]
To give it the same creation time is to say that
both files are the same file; that there are no
actual copies and therefore the copy
was never actually created. Thus it's only an
alternate manifestation of the same, exact item.
Sounds like some pretty funky, existential hocus
pocus to me.

I can have two (or more) copies of the same file, _with the same date
stamps_, on the same disc, as long as they're in different directories;
nothing existential about that. I can even have them in the same folder,
provided I have changed the filename for one of them. Whether they're
"alternat[IV]e manifestations" I'll leave to the metaphysicists, but
they both occupy (separate) space on the disc, i. e. I'm not talking
about links, pointers, or such concepts.


--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If it ain't broke, don't download updates.
- Al Drake in alt.windows7.general, 2015-4-4
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  #107  
Old December 16th 17, 02:07 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.apps,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.system
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

AIUI, each data packet includes an ID to ensure that the intended
recipient computer can snag it from the data stream, and assemble the
packets in correct order, including the MIME header at the start of the
data. If you want to quibble about whether the ID data is inside the
packet or not, go ahead, quibble. Anything to keep you happy.

the mime headers are *not* part of the actual data. they *describe* the
data that is sent.

Dear, dear, tsk, tsk, more misreading. But then I knew you would.


there's no misreading whatsoever.

the mime headers describe the data that follows. that's why they're
called headers.


I never disputed that. Which is why I didn't understand your comment
about it.

I suspect you weren't paying attention that I was talking about about
"data packets", not data. They go by many other names, so maybe that
term confused you. Just in case you still don't understand what I'm
referring to: the MIME header is transmitted in data packets, just like
the data it it describes. Every data packet carries the necessary
metadata with it, else it could not be combined with other data packets
into the transmitted file at the receiving end.


that's at the network level, not the application level, and not
relevant to the discussion about file system metadata.

My point was that this
principle should be implemented all the way up. Just like turtles, only
in the other direction.


no reason to do that.
  #108  
Old December 16th 17, 02:25 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Andre G. Isaak
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 27
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In article ,
Alan Baker wrote:

On 2017-12-15 4:30 PM, Your Name wrote:
On 2017-12-16 00:10:04 +0000, Alan Baker said:

On 2017-12-14 4:31 PM, Your Name wrote:
On 2017-12-14 20:28:16 +0000, Andre G. Isaak said:
In article , Wolf K
wrote:
On 2017-12-14 10:18, nospam wrote:
In article , Tim
Streater
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. What's the advantage of the "forks"? 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.

Resource Forks are completely unrelated to metadata.

The 2-fork architecture was inherited from Classic Mac OS, and, while
still supported by mac OS X, it is used much less frequently.

In Classic Mac OS, every file consisted of two separate forks
(either of
which could be empty).
snip

Wrong.

Purely data files, such as a JPEG image or Word document, did not
have any resource fork at all, not even an empty one. They didn't
need one because there are no resources. That's why if you try to
open a data file in ResEdit it says there is no resource fork and
asks if you want to add one. (An optional add-on did allow ResEdit to
open the data fork).

Mainly it was only applications that had resource forks.


Many people confuse the Finder's information as being part of the
resource fork, but they are different. The Finder's information is
not stored inside the file at all.

Would you care to explain, then, how the Finder knows what information
to apply to which file?


The Classic MacOS uses information stored within the Finder's own
invisible information files to understand what application to use with
each document file, the three usual ones being "Desktop DB", "Desktop
DF", and "TheVolumeSettingsFolder". These show up under Windows, which
was another cause of confusion for some users.


Yes, yes, yes...

....I understand that very well.

But what is the SOURCE for the information in the first place?


The Desktop database contains (among other things) copies of the BNDL,
FREF, ICN# and related resource from each application (or anything
containing a BNDL). BNDL resources map between creator/file types to
determine which icon will be displayed. Creator types determine which
application will be used to open a document. The original source of
these are (normally) applications. These *are* part of the file. They
also aren't metadata.

And do you imagine that the Desktop DB, Desktop DF, etc. had individual
entries for EVERY FILE on a hard drive?


If not, then each FILE has to contain information about what KIND of
file it is.


Each file is associated with a file type and file creator. These are not
stored in the individual file. They are metadata stored in the
filesystem entry which points to the file.

Andre

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail service.
  #109  
Old December 16th 17, 02:29 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?


"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| If you add an inline image that is HTML. If you
|
| No.
|

Then maybe that's why your recipients get an
attachments. You can't do an inline image in plain text.
The image code is HTML.

| True, there will be a boundary string before and after any embedded
| attachment (image or otherwise). But I can send an email that goes
|
| text
| attachment
| more text
|
I've never seen that, but I guess there's no reason it
won't work. A plain text setting in the receiving client
will look for Content-Type of text/plain and a client set
to read HTML will look for text/html. I don't think it
matters where those are.

| If you give me an email address (use a throwaway one if you're
| paranoid), I'll send you an example.

We've corresponded before. I wrote to you this
morning. (Or more like mid-afternoon your time.)

| No, I've looked at (even edited, occasionally) the raw data form of
| emails, and there's no HTML - or any other tag - in them.

If the section is marked with Contet-Type text/html
then it's HTML. Otherwise it's not. But HTML can be some
weird stuff. for instance, email sent from MS Word
typically includes all sorts of nonsense, made-up
tags starting with "mso-" that only mean something
if the recipient uses Outlook.

| Well, that's a dual-part email, since you included the plain text "for
| non-html readers" as well. (I'm pretty sure I've seen emails without the
| plain text version, i. e. HTML only.)

I get those occasionally. Mostly commercial
or spammy stuff. It's common courtesy to at
least include a text section that says something
like, "This email needs to be viewed as HTML",
to help people who see a blank email. But that's
become less common as 1) email is more often
commercial and 2) senders more often assume
the recipient is reading it as webmail.

It started out plain text. Then HTML was added.
Both were sent to accomodate people who couldn't
read HTML. Then HTML was phased out because
it's risky. Then webmail became popular and that
caused a resurgence of HTML, as more and more
people didn't even use real email clients.

Last week I was working for someone who does
software bug testing. She was complaining about
the ads she gets in her yahoo email. I asked her
why she didn't set it up for POP3 in a real email
program and why she didn't use at least a basic
HOSTS file. She'd never heard of either! I asked her
what she used to use for email before yahoo and
hotmail. She didn't remember.

The conversation came up because she'd emailed
me a webpage from Home Depot. What I saw, reading
as text-only, was a few lines of text and a lot of
space. She works for a software company but didn't
know enough to send a simple link. I realized she
lives in a world of assumed HTML, ads, linked images
and of course, web beacon spyware in her email. She
never noticed.


  #110  
Old December 16th 17, 02:50 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| And the date-of-taking would probably be embedded in the file anyway,
| these days (and for the last several years).

Yes. But I guess we shouldn't start up the
semantic debate over "what's metadata" again.

| I can have two (or more) copies of the same file, _with the same date
| stamps_, on the same disc, as long as they're in different directories;

With the same *creation* time? I don't see how.
As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
creation time for when it was created. If you look
at system files you'll see the same thing. It might
be creation time of 2013 and last modified 2010.
The creation time is when it was installed. Last
modified is when it was last changed. The latter was
stored in the Windows installer so that it could be
added during install.
Likewise if you take a file out of a ZIP. The lastMod
time is stored because it might be relevant. But creation
time is whenever that copy of the file was taken out
of the ZIP.

Otherwise, when is it created? You write an essay,
copy it elsewhere, rewrite that file, eventually have
a second file that bears no commonality at all with the
first... To say it was created when the first file was
created wouldn't make sense. You're then attaching
the creation to a theoretical file rather than to a
specific digital item. Creation time would then
always have to trace back to when a new file was made.
And if copying is not creation, what about recompiling?
Were all copies of all versions of the Windows kernel
created in 1992 or 1995 or some such just because there's
been a kernel32.dll file in existence during all that time?



  #111  
Old December 16th 17, 02:56 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| I can have two (or more) copies of the same file, _with the same date
| stamps_, on the same disc, as long as they're in different directories;

With the same *creation* time? I don't see how.


easily.

As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
creation time for when it was created.


not on all operating systems.
  #112  
Old December 16th 17, 03:04 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Alan Baker
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 111
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

On 2017-12-15 5:50 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| And the date-of-taking would probably be embedded in the file anyway,
| these days (and for the last several years).

Yes. But I guess we shouldn't start up the
semantic debate over "what's metadata" again.

| I can have two (or more) copies of the same file, _with the same date
| stamps_, on the same disc, as long as they're in different directories;

With the same *creation* time? I don't see how.
As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
creation time for when it was created. If you look
at system files you'll see the same thing. It might
be creation time of 2013 and last modified 2010.
The creation time is when it was installed. Last
modified is when it was last changed. The latter was
stored in the Windows installer so that it could be
added during install.
Likewise if you take a file out of a ZIP. The lastMod
time is stored because it might be relevant. But creation
time is whenever that copy of the file was taken out
of the ZIP.

Otherwise, when is it created? You write an essay,
copy it elsewhere, rewrite that file, eventually have
a second file that bears no commonality at all with the
first... To say it was created when the first file was
created wouldn't make sense. You're then attaching
the creation to a theoretical file rather than to a
specific digital item. Creation time would then
always have to trace back to when a new file was made.
And if copying is not creation, what about recompiling?
Were all copies of all versions of the Windows kernel
created in 1992 or 1995 or some such just because there's
been a kernel32.dll file in existence during all that time?




But the creation date is just data that one can change.
  #113  
Old December 16th 17, 03:24 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In message , Mayayana
writes:

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| If you add an inline image that is HTML. If you
|
| No.
|

Then maybe that's why your recipients get an
attachments. You can't do an inline image in plain text.
The image code is HTML.


No. I've just checked the raw code of such an email, and the
four-character string "HTML" is nowhere in it. Sure, the sections are
delimited by separator sections, beginning with "Content-Type:". What
follows that is either "text/plain:charset=..." or (for this example)
"image/jpeg".

| True, there will be a boundary string before and after any embedded
| attachment (image or otherwise). But I can send an email that goes
|
| text
| attachment
| more text
|
I've never seen that, but I guess there's no reason it
won't work. A plain text setting in the receiving client
will look for Content-Type of text/plain and a client set
to read HTML will look for text/html. I don't think it
matters where those are.


But most modern clients won't be able to display the second or
subsequent text blocks as part of the email, after either the image or a
clickable icon for the attachment.

| If you give me an email address (use a throwaway one if you're
| paranoid), I'll send you an example.

We've corresponded before. I wrote to you this
morning. (Or more like mid-afternoon your time.)


I've replied. (I don't think I'd kept your email from last time.)

| No, I've looked at (even edited, occasionally) the raw data form of
| emails, and there's no HTML - or any other tag - in them.

If the section is marked with Contet-Type text/html
then it's HTML. Otherwise it's not. But HTML can be some


Of course, if it says it's HTML, then it is. But there doesn't have to
be any HTML at all.

weird stuff. for instance, email sent from MS Word
typically includes all sorts of nonsense, made-up
tags starting with "mso-" that only mean something
if the recipient uses Outlook.


Indeed. Similar to how Word is atrocious at HTML. (Try this:

HTML
HEAD/HEAD
BODY
FONT COLOR=redsome red text/FONTBR
FONY COLOR=yellowsome yellow text/FONT
/BODY
HTML

Save that as e. g. sample.htm, load it into Word, save it "as HTML", and
be amazed at the size of the result. (Then look at it in Notepad and see
why it's so huge.)

| Well, that's a dual-part email, since you included the plain text "for
| non-html readers" as well. (I'm pretty sure I've seen emails without the
| plain text version, i. e. HTML only.)

I get those occasionally. Mostly commercial
or spammy stuff. It's common courtesy to at
least include a text section that says something
like, "This email needs to be viewed as HTML",
to help people who see a blank email. But that's


I get that from one retailer (7dayshop) where the text part says "our
emails look better in HTML", or something like that - not "needs to be
viewed in", which infuriates me. (Of _course_ they'll "look better" in
HTML if the text part doesn't contain anything but that line!)

become less common as 1) email is more often
commercial and 2) senders more often assume
the recipient is reading it as webmail.

It started out plain text. Then HTML was added.
Both were sent to accomodate people who couldn't
read HTML. Then HTML was phased out because
it's risky. Then webmail became popular and that


Well, it doesn't have to be risky: my client is quite happy to display
the HTML part, but only interprets the formatting part of HTML, not any
code. (Well, I'm not sure if it displays embedded images; it's so long
since I got an HTML email that actually had images in it rather than
links to the online versions.) Since it doesn't run any script, it's
perfectly safe. But I suspect most emailers use something high-level so
don't know if they're relying on script (almost certainly don't even
know what script is), so they often break.

caused a resurgence of HTML, as more and more
people didn't even use real email clients.

Last week I was working for someone who does
software bug testing. She was complaining about
the ads she gets in her yahoo email. I asked her
why she didn't set it up for POP3 in a real email
program and why she didn't use at least a basic
HOSTS file. She'd never heard of either! I asked her
what she used to use for email before yahoo and
hotmail. She didn't remember.


I'm not at all surprised. I think webmail is used by by far the majority
these days.

The conversation came up because she'd emailed
me a webpage from Home Depot. What I saw, reading
as text-only, was a few lines of text and a lot of
space.

Yes, I see a lot of web pages these days that have vast amounts of space
in them. Including many ebay listings; I can only assume they're trying
to conceal the contact details and the like that I presume ebay oblige
them to include.
She works for a software company but didn't
know enough to send a simple link. I realized she
lives in a world of assumed HTML, ads, linked images
and of course, web beacon spyware in her email. She
never noticed.

Again, I'm not surprised.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A perfectionist takes infinite pains and often gives them to others
  #114  
Old December 16th 17, 03:35 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| And the date-of-taking would probably be embedded in the file anyway,
| these days (and for the last several years).

Yes. But I guess we shouldn't start up the
semantic debate over "what's metadata" again.

| I can have two (or more) copies of the same file, _with the same date
| stamps_, on the same disc, as long as they're in different directories;

With the same *creation* time? I don't see how.
As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
creation time for when it was created. If you look
at system files you'll see the same thing. It might
be creation time of 2013 and last modified 2010.
The creation time is when it was installed. Last
modified is when it was last changed. The latter was
stored in the Windows installer so that it could be
added during install.


You are right, the Creation: and Accessed: times are now, but the
Modified: time is retained. Which gives the ridiculous (to me) concept
of a file that was last modified before it was created.

Likewise if you take a file out of a ZIP. The lastMod
time is stored because it might be relevant. But creation
time is whenever that copy of the file was taken out
of the ZIP.


The date column in my Explorer windows is the Modified one. I'm pretty
sure that's the default (I expect you can force a Created column if you
want to see one).
[]
Were all copies of all versions of the Windows kernel
created in 1992 or 1995 or some such just because there's
been a kernel32.dll file in existence during all that time?

No.


I've just experimented: the date shown in a command prompt _is_
retained, so is presumably the "modified" one. (That's under NTFS; I
don't have anything FAT to hand to see what happens there, either in
Explorer or command prompt.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A perfectionist takes infinite pains and often gives them to others
  #115  
Old December 16th 17, 04:00 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

"Alan Baker" wrote

| Otherwise, when is it created? You write an essay,
| copy it elsewhere, rewrite that file, eventually have
| a second file that bears no commonality at all with the
| first... To say it was created when the first file was
| created wouldn't make sense. You're then attaching
| the creation to a theoretical file rather than to a
| specific digital item. Creation time would then
| always have to trace back to when a new file was made.
| And if copying is not creation, what about recompiling?
| Were all copies of all versions of the Windows kernel
| created in 1992 or 1995 or some such just because there's
| been a kernel32.dll file in existence during all that time?
|
| But the creation date is just data that one can change.

Yes. It's all just data that one can change, stored by
the file system. None of it's in the file. The only reason
you can install a program and get accurate lastMod dates
is because installers set that based on data stored in the
installer. Otherwise it wouldn't transfer.

There's no security or restriction on that, assuming
that the calling process has write "permission" on the file.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.85%29.aspx

Traditionally the creation time is when a specific file
was created. If it's a copy of another file that doesn't
matter. Every shell32.dll wasn't created in 1992. Each
was created when it was instantiated as a unique digital
item.


  #116  
Old December 16th 17, 04:06 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

"nospam" wrote

| As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
| creation time for when it was created.
|
| not on all operating systems.

You're saying it's otherwise on Macs? Have
you actually looked? If a couple of people besides
you confirm it then I'll assume it's true.

Far be it from me to question the edicts of
Lord Jobs. If he says all files were created in
1984 by Himself then that, of course, would be
the law in AppleLand. I only know Windows.


  #117  
Old December 16th 17, 04:57 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.apps,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.system
Your Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 125
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

On 2017-12-16 01:25:18 +0000, Andre G. Isaak said:

In article ,
Alan Baker wrote:

On 2017-12-15 4:30 PM, Your Name wrote:
On 2017-12-16 00:10:04 +0000, Alan Baker said:

On 2017-12-14 4:31 PM, Your Name wrote:
On 2017-12-14 20:28:16 +0000, Andre G. Isaak said:
In article , Wolf K
wrote:
On 2017-12-14 10:18, nospam wrote:
In article , Tim
Streater
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. What's the advantage of the "forks"? 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.

Resource Forks are completely unrelated to metadata.

The 2-fork architecture was inherited from Classic Mac OS, and, while
still supported by mac OS X, it is used much less frequently.

In Classic Mac OS, every file consisted of two separate forks
(either of
which could be empty).
snip

Wrong.

Purely data files, such as a JPEG image or Word document, did not
have any resource fork at all, not even an empty one. They didn't
need one because there are no resources. That's why if you try to
open a data file in ResEdit it says there is no resource fork and
asks if you want to add one. (An optional add-on did allow ResEdit to
open the data fork).

Mainly it was only applications that had resource forks.


Many people confuse the Finder's information as being part of the
resource fork, but they are different. The Finder's information is
not stored inside the file at all.

Would you care to explain, then, how the Finder knows what information
to apply to which file?

The Classic MacOS uses information stored within the Finder's own
invisible information files to understand what application to use with
each document file, the three usual ones being "Desktop DB", "Desktop
DF", and "TheVolumeSettingsFolder". These show up under Windows, which
was another cause of confusion for some users.


Yes, yes, yes...

....I understand that very well.

But what is the SOURCE for the information in the first place?


The Desktop database contains (among other things) copies of the BNDL,
FREF, ICN# and related resource from each application (or anything
containing a BNDL). BNDL resources map between creator/file types to
determine which icon will be displayed. Creator types determine which
application will be used to open a document. The original source of
these are (normally) applications. These *are* part of the file. They
also aren't metadata.


Yep. The information comes from the original application, or in the
case of files transferred from other OSes like Windows, it can cames as
guesswork based on the filename extension (for eample, using PC
Exchange on the old System 7 Macs). When you transfer a file from one
disk to another, the Finder information is automatically copied to the
destination as well.




And do you imagine that the Desktop DB, Desktop DF, etc. had individual
entries for EVERY FILE on a hard drive?

If not, then each FILE has to contain information about what KIND of
file it is.


Each file is associated with a file type and file creator. These are not
stored in the individual file. They are metadata stored in the
filesystem entry which points to the file.


Yep. The files do store information for every data file on the disk.
The amount of information for each file is minimal, so they don't take
up that much room.

You can rebuild the desktop files for disks individually by holding
down a key combination as the disk is mounted (from memory, you hold
down Command-Option, but it's been a while since I've done it). The
process re-looks up the required information from the applications they
were created in / assigned to.


Only some files contain information within them, for example, PDFs have
"PDF" in the first line or so ... if you open them in a text editor.
Relying on that would be hopeless since many data file types do not
have such information within them, although the growing use of XML data
file formats is changing that these days.




  #118  
Old December 16th 17, 05:40 AM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| As soon as you make a copy, that copy gets the
| creation time for when it was created.
|
| not on all operating systems.

You're saying it's otherwise on Macs?


for copies done via finder (explorer equivalent), create time is
preserved.

for copies done via the unix shell, it depends. historically, unix
doesn't track create time, but macos does, so what happens via the
shell will vary depending on the command used and its options.

more he
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...le-creation-da
te-in-linux/5929466#5929466

here's a good explanation of the difference:
https://groups.google.com/forum/mess...mac.system/ARr
LvqBbZn4/e5Y5Lbf3koQJ
The Windows philosophy toward creation times is filesystem-centric;
the timestamp reflects the time when the file entry was created on
that volume. For this reason, when you copy the file to a different
volume, the copy gets a new creation timestamp -- one that might even
be newer than the file modification time.

The Mac philosophy toward creation times is document-oriented; the
timestamp indicates when the document (the contents of the file) was
first saved.

Have
you actually looked?


yep.

If a couple of people besides
you confirm it then I'll assume it's true.


at least one already has.

Far be it from me to question the edicts of
Lord Jobs. If he says all files were created in
1984 by Himself then that, of course, would be
the law in AppleLand.


there you go with your anti-apple crap.

I only know Windows.


yep. that's all you know.

maybe one day you'll consider learning something new.

maybe also one day you'll realize that what lord gates declared isn't
the *only* way things should work and that there are valid reasons for
doing it another way.
  #119  
Old December 16th 17, 02:59 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

"nospam" wrote

| You're saying it's otherwise on Macs?
|
| for copies done via finder (explorer equivalent), create time is
| preserved.
|

Actually it turns out there is no creation time. Starting
from your links I found explanations of Unix/Linux "mtime"
and "ctime". C stands for change, not creation. The difference
is clearly explained he

http://www.geekride.com/inode-struct...e-mtime-atime/

M is lastMod. C is last time the file data changed in the
filesystem and is usually the same as lastMod. Apple may
call it creation time but that's not even partially accurate.
It would only be creation time when the file is first created,
before it's been changed at all in terms of content,
permissions, etc.

I find this to be rather humorous, in a geeky sort of way.
Microsoft, a company deeply concerned with copyright
income and generally making money from computers,
sees files as digital objects. The object is created and has
a life. A copy is another object. (Naturally. One makes more
money from more copies of copyrighted data.) Meanwhile
the Unix people are so geeky that they find it more relevant
to store a record of activity in terms of the file system
structure on disk than to store the data in terms of human
relevance.

It's reminiscent of the way one can make tempers flare
in Linux newsgroups by merely referring to a "folder". It's
almost guaranteed to result in several fuming geeks, "at
the ends of their ropes" over being exposed to "idiots".
They'll go into long diatribes about how there are
only directories -- listings of files in the file system -- and
that there's no such thing as a folder. Of course there's no
such thing as a file, either, from that point of view. It's
all just multiple levels of abstraction of binary patterns. But
you'll tell them that only at your peril.

Who said this wasn't an existential issue?


  #120  
Old December 16th 17, 03:29 PM posted to comp.sys.mac.system,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.mac.apps
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default Can a Macintosh person tell us how to change the name of a file?

"Mayayana" wrote

| Actually it turns out there is no creation time.

The plot thickens.

-----------------------
https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...n-date-of-file

The POSIX standard only defines three distinct timestamps to be stored for
each file: the time of last data access, the time of last data modification,
and the time the file status last changed.

That said, modern Linux filesystems, such as ext4, Btrfs and JFS, do store
the file creation time (aka birth time), but use different names for the
field in question (crtime in ext4, otime in Btrfs and JFS). However,
currently Linux does not provide a kernel API for accessing the file
creation times, even on filesystems supporting them.
--------------------------

So there's more recently been created a creation time,
or birth time (crtime), which is apparently not standardized
at this point in the sense that there's no API access.
But it is stored, and Macs apparently deal with it, so that
any notably enthusiastic software on a Mac might dig it
up.
So maybe that accounts for the disagreements. Though
I never did find whether Unix/Mac birth time is exactly the
same as Windows creation time.


 




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