Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!inebriae!crucible!al
From: al@crucible.UUCP (Al Evans)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Getting the full pathname?
Summary: So I was wrong...
Message-ID: <112@crucible.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 89 14:34:30 GMT
References: <850zebolskyd@yvax.byu.edu> <111@crucible.UUCP> <35671@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: al@crucible.UUCP (Al Evans)
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Organization: PowerTools, Austin, TX
Lines: 31

In article <35671@apple.Apple.COM> keith@Apple.COM (Keith Rollin) writes:
>In article <111@crucible.UUCP> al@crucible.UUCP (Al Evans) writes:
>>In article <850zebolskyd@yvax.byu.edu> zebolskyd@yvax.byu.edu writes:
>>
>>>so on until to get to dirID=2, which will be the root. You get the names
>>		       ^^^^^^^
>>      Although this seems to be true, it doesn't seem to be documented :-(
>
>This *IS* documented. Check out the top of page 92 of Inside Mac IV. In add-
>ition, this is the technique used in Technote #238 and DTS Sample Code #18:
>Standard File. Finally, there is a constant defined in the MPW headers
>(fsRtDirID) that identifies the root as 2.

You're right on all counts. Shows how much Mac programming I've been
doing recently. But STILL, I don't trust magic numbers, and prefer to
find alternate solutions -- while I can imagine the dirID of the root
directory changing, I suspect that trying to get information about its
parent will ALWAYS return an error.

>I'd probably base my exit condition on a specific error rather 
>than just any old error, but so far it looks pretty good.

That's probably a good plan -- though if the routine fails for
any reason OTHER than reaching the top of the directory tree,
your application is in REALLY serious trouble.

					--Al Evans--
-- 
Al Evans					"You'd grep to know what
...uunet!execu!sequoia!crucible!al			 you really sed."
							--Referent Blob