Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!hoffman
From: hoffman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Altering the Resouce fork
Message-ID: <18300004@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 27 Aug 89 20:04:00 GMT
References: <1492@unocss.UUCP>
Lines: 31
Nf-ID: #R:unocss.UUCP:1492:ux1.cso.uiuc.edu:18300004:000:1431
Nf-From: ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!hoffman    Aug 27 15:04:00 1989


I've been doing that for years.  I think I read somewhere that you should
never change the resources of the running program, but I've NEVER had a
problem.

What I do is create a resource called PREF for my preferences.  ID can be
anything but I start at 0.  I do a GetResource("PREF",0) and if NIL is
returned then you create a default resource and write it.  Then when you
quit your program, call ChangedResource followed by WriteResource.  You
can find all of this in IM vol. 1 chapter 5.  As for the data type of
a PREF.  It's whatever you want:

	myPrefHandle=^myPrefPtr;
	myPrefPtr=^myPrefRec;
	myPrefRec=RECORD
		.. your fields here ..
		end; (* record *)

It's really a neat thing, but do some checking after GetResource in case
someone has been poking around with ResEdit where they shouldn't.  If you get
back an invalid PREF, just go back to the default.

Steve
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