Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!well!svc
From: svc@well.UUCP (Leonard Rosenthol)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Resource Weirdness
Summary: Some suggestions
Keywords: Resource Weird Files
Message-ID: <12321@well.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 89 16:42:50 GMT
References: <664@biar.UUCP> <665@biar.UUCP>
Lines: 57

In article <664@biar.UUCP>, trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead) writes:
Here are some comments about your scheme that may or may not be causing the
problems you are seeing. 

>Here is what I am doing :
>
>        standard SF dialog to get filename and WDRefnum
>        GetVol to get current volume or working directory
>        SetVol to the WDRefnum
>
	So far so good.

>        Delete to trash any existing version of the file
>        Create
>        Open
>        Write the text
>        Close
>
	I have a personal beef against anyone who does this.  Above you say that
the reason you are writing both TEXT and resources is so that other programs can
get at the data in the data fork - well if you are going to DELETE the file each
time YOU modify it then all of the additional data that other apps put in ther
will be lost.  Example, MPW (and other editors) store resources that keep info
like window positions, default font/size, etc. and your scheme will destroy that
info and your users will not be happy.  If other 'editors' did this to your
files your uers would lose thier data from your file.
	A better method is to do an open on the file, it is succeeds then  do
a SetEOF to the beginning of the file (ie. 0) and then do your write.  If it
fails (like file does not exist) then create it, and write.  This works just
fine and won't destroy any other apps data.  

>        CreateResFile to create the resource fork
>        OpenRFPerm to get it open (with StripAddress too!)
>        UseResFile because I'm paranoid
>        AddResource
>        CloseResFile
>
	Again, since you not going to destroy the file first, you need to check
for the resource fork first and only if it does not have one then create it.
Just out of curiousity, you might try using an OpenResFile instead of the 
OpenRFPerm to open up the file.  You shouls also try a WriteResource after
the Add to make sure that it gets written as well as an UpdateResFile before
the close to also double check the writing.

>        SetVol back to original volume
>        UseResFile back to my app's resource file.
>
	You didn't mention it, but I assume that you got the resfile originally
so that you could restore it here.

	Hope these comments help...

-- 
+--------------------------------------------------+
Leonard Rosenthol        |  GEnie : MACgician
Lazerware, inc.          |  MacNet: MACgician
UUCP: svc@well.UUCP      |  ALink : D0025