Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!mattd From: mattd@Apple.COM (Matt Deatherage) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: forked files... Message-ID: <30691@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 15 May 89 02:16:56 GMT Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA Lines: 56 In article <1091@n8emr.UUCP> lwv@n8emr.UUCP (Larry W. Virden) writes: > >I dont understand how ProSel's Mr Fixit - a prodos 8 file mangler - can handle >forked files if 'it is impossible' for prodos 8 to handle the forked files? > >Also, I think this is a bad precedence - having a file type that prodos 8 >programs cannot at least copy, etc. Is there anything being done about this? > As Jason later explained, it's not a file type, it's a storage type. And there's been one out there for at least four years that ProDOS 8 can't read - the Pascal area on ProFile drives created by the Pascal ProFile Manager. Of course the files are accessible at the block level, but this is a very bad thing to do by default because a) *most* 8-bit users don't want, don't care about and don't need extended files; creating them on their disks (like when unpacking a IIgs program) just causes problems for the vast majority of programs that can't deal with them, and b) it automatically makes the program not work over AppleShare, which is a bigger deal than many people would like to think. The recommended way for P8 programs, specifically disk packers/unpackers, to deal with extended files is documented (already!) in the File Type Notes for File Types $E0, auxiliary types $0001 - $0003. Those give formats developed by Apple for extended files in foriegn file systems, which applies to GS/OS Extended files on ProDOS disks when running under ProDOS 8. (They also apply to UNIX - a good AppleSingle/AppleDouble translator could make passing Apple II and Macintosh files around the network a whole lot easier.) By using these formats that convert forked files into one or two non-forked files, the user can do what he wants with each fork. IIgs users can run an almost-trivial utility to turn them back into forked files (or they can run GS/OS versions of ShrinkIT, when available, that will be able to read the files directly). The point is some extensive thought has gone into this before the question even came up on the net. Read the File Type Notes in question for more information. >-- >Larry W. Virden 674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068 (614) 864-8817 >n8emr!lwv@cis.ohio-state.edu (Internet) >75046,606 (CIS) ; LVirden (ALPE) ; osu-cis!n8emr!lwv (UUCP) >The world's not inherited from our parents, but borrowed from our children. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Deatherage, Apple Computer, Inc. | "The opinions expressed in this tome Send PERSONAL mail ONLY (please) to: | should not be construed to imply that AppleLink PE: Matt DTS GEnie: AIIDTS | Apple Computer, Inc., or any of its CompuServe: 76703,3030 | subsidiaries, in whole or in part, Usenet: mattd@apple.com | have any opinion on any subject." UUCP: (other stuff)!ames!apple!mattd | "So there." -----------------------------------------------------------------------------