TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (01/17/88)
Does anyone know what the intention of "read-permitted" access control bit in ProDos is, especially with regard to directories? Its implemetnation seesm a littel half-baked. If you clear it (on a directory) it does what one would think it should: a catalog of the directory (or attempt to open a window on it in the finder) shows an "empty" directory. On the other hand, if you try to read something contained IN the directory, say just LOADing a basic program, that works fine. (I claim it shouldn't -- if you can't read a directory you shouldn't be able to read through it, but then there could be arguments about that.) There is one other anomaly in the way the bit is implemented: the basic "unlock" command sets that bit (as well as the other protection bits); clicking the lock/unlock box from the finder file-info window does NOT affect the "read-permitted", which I think is how the basic command ought to work too. I'm asking because I just installed a hard drive and was digging through the ProDos documentation to see if there was any fairly easy way to protect different users from accidentally browsing through each others files (without two-state hardware you can't really protect anything.) It looks like that bit could be used to do the job, except that the basic "unlock" command is just too easy a way to set it when it's been cleared.