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From: jesup@mizar.steinmetz (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: .info files and workbench
Message-ID: <7380@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Sep-87 01:01:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: steinmet.7380
Posted: Wed Sep 16 01:01:58 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Sep-87 04:22:02 EDT
References: <373@io.UUCP> <2310@cbmvax.UUCP> <376@io.UUCP> <7325@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <381@io.UUCP>
Sender: root@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP
Reply-To: jesup@mizar.steinmetz.UUCP (Randell Jesup)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 39

In article <381@io.UUCP> carlos@chip.UUCP (Carlos Smith) writes:
>In article <7325@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> jesup@mizar.steinmetz.UUCP (Randell Jesup) writes:
>..	[describes not being able to delete a directory because a file
>..	 exists, but go to delete file and "error 205 - file not found"]
>.Aha!  What you had was a xxxxx.info (xxxx is the name displayed) file (an
>.icon) with no associated file.  When you tell it to delete it, it can't find
>.the regular file (it doesn't exist).
...
>I appreciate the comment, and I could see where this could happen and cause
>great confusion. However, in my case the directory was empty, there were NO
>other files around except (or not even?!?) the file the directory thought was
>there but wasn't (or wasn't there, but was, or was it wasn't was it?).
>			Carlos Smith

There WAS 1 file there, a icon file.  The Amiga uses a seperate file to store
icons, they are NOT part of the directory or file they are the icon for.
When Workbench displays a drawer (directory), it just searchs the directory
for files that end in '.info'.  These file contain icons for other files in the
directory usually, but not always.  Now, when you attempt to remove a file
or directory FROM WORKBENCH, it looks for the file that goes with the icon,
then deletes them both.  What happened to you was that the file associated
with the icon didn't exist, and workbench gave up with an error message
(similar for moving it somewhere else).  If you did a list or dir on the
directory from cli, there would have been a file there, I assure you.

Now the reason I'm following this up, not mailing.  This behavior is confusing
to novice workbench users, and something should be done for 1.3 or whatever.
Either a better error message, or allow the icon alone to be deleted, or
something.  Actually, I still feel icons should NOT be seperate files, and
should be part of the directory, or the file, or one file in the directory.

P.S.  Carlos:  Try cutting down included material a little bit more for
your responses.
--


	Randell Jesup  (Please use one of these paths for mail)
	mizar!jesup@steinmetz.UUCP (uunet!steinmetz!{mizar|crd}!jesup)
	jesup@ge-crd.ARPA