[net.micro.mac] Bad Bundle Bombs Finder

ephraim@wang.UUCP (pri=8 Ephraim Vishniac x76659 ms1459) (05/19/86)

1. Does your application bundle refer to non-existent resources?
2. Does your Mac bomb when you boot with your application disk?
3. Does the Finder gasp and choke when you try to copy the file?

An acquaintance was complaining of (2) and (3); I discovered this
weekend that (1) was the cause.  When the Finder encounters a "new"
application with the bundle bit set, it copies the bundle resource
and the resources it refers to into the Desktop.  If a referenced
resource is non-existent, the Finder sets its ID to -1 in the Desktop
copy of the bundle.  It then proceeds, at least some of the time,
to assume that the "-1" is a legitimate resource ID.  The initial
encounter doesn't seem to cause much trouble, but copying and
booting often end in bombs.

The reason for the bad bundle was a misunderstanding.  The resource
counts in the bundle are actually count - 1.  (For example, zero
means one.)  If you insist on putting the actual count in, you'll
have bogus references in your bundle.

I had a lot of trouble with the 3d-plotting application that came
over the net about a month back - attempting to copy it after
unpacking consistently made my MacXL freeze solid.  I gave up after
a couple of tries, but I now I wonder...

Ephraim Vishniac
decvax!wanginst!wang!ephraim