stuart@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (S. D. Ericson) (12/01/89)
I had a finder crash the other day while copying files from my harddisk to the floppy drive. I finally traced it down to files with names that began with "./" . If I copied a file with that prefix, the progress bar would come up, show progress in reading the file, then finder would crash as soon as it put up the notice about writing to the floppy. Because I run multifinder, the finder would soon come back (I had no other applications running) and the system would 'gain' the 160K of memory from the lost finder. Has anyone else had this problem? I have a 2MB Mac II, Jasmine 80MB, standard 800K floppy. Running Sys 6.02 Inits: vaccine, fortuneII, jasmine, moire3.0, facade, DAmenuz, Soundmaster, InUse, Init Cdev2.0. However, I removed ALL inits except vaccine via init cdev and the problem was still there.... Any Ideas? Has this been discussed in comp.sys.mac.programmer? Kinda curious... Stuart -- Stuart Ericson AT&T Bell Laboratories | Note: area code 312 USEnet: att!ihlpa!stuart IH 1C215 | becomes 708 on ARPA: stuart@ihlpa.att.com 2000 N. Naperville Road | 11/11 Thanks to Voice: (312) 979-4491 Naperville, Il 60566-7033 | Illinois Bell :-(
erics@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Eric Schlegel) (12/02/89)
In article <5169@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> stuart@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (S. D. Ericson) writes: >I had a finder crash the other day while copying files from >my harddisk to the floppy drive. I finally traced it down >to files with names that began with "./" . If I copied >a file with that prefix, the progress bar would come up, >show progress in reading the file, then finder would crash >as soon as it put up the notice about writing to the floppy. > >Has anyone else had this problem? This is a known feature (??) of the Mac. A file that starts with a dot is assumed to be a driver resource, and if you try to open it, the system tries to open a driver in the system file. and BOOM... You just have to not name files starting with a dot. -eric eric.schlegel@dartmouth.edu
bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (12/03/89)
In article <17567@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> erics@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Eric Schlegel) writes: >In article <5169@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> stuart@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (S. D. Ericson) writes: >>I had a finder crash the other day while copying files from >>my harddisk to the floppy drive. I finally traced it down >>to files with names that began with "./" . If I copied >>a file with that prefix, the progress bar would come up, >>show progress in reading the file, then finder would crash >>as soon as it put up the notice about writing to the floppy. > >This is a known feature (??) of the Mac. A file that starts with a dot is >assumed to be a driver resource, and if you try to open it, the system >tries to open a driver in the system file. and BOOM... > >You just have to not name files starting with a dot. Hm, this could be more of a problem than first meets the eye... Unix happens to like files with periods at the beginning of their names. (For those of you who are VMS-lovers [ugh], a .file is 'invisible' and will not be shown under a normal directory listing. This is how you keep those boring login files and others from showing up all the time...) Now, ordinarily, this would cause no problem for the Finder, because the Finder shouldn't mess with Unix files. But now we have AppleShare... I regularly use AppleShare to mount my Unix directory on my Mac over EtherTalk. This gives me easy access to my Unix files (and makes it really easy to use files pulled off comp.binaries.mac!). Does this mean that if I dare try to do anything with my .login, or .cshrc, or .emacs, or .anythingelse from the Finder, my Mac will go bye-byes? ::shudder:: << Brian >> -- | Brian S. Kendig | I feel more like I | bskendig | | Computer Engineering | did when I got here | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU | | Princeton University | than I do now. | @PUCC.BITNET | | Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3 |
jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu (Nick Jackiw) (12/04/89)
bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes: > In article <17567@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> erics@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Eric Schlegel) writes: > >In article <5169@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> stuart@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (S. D. Ericson) writes: > >>I had a finder crash the other day while copying files from > >>my harddisk to the floppy drive. I finally traced it down > >>to files with names that began with "./" . > >This is a known feature (??) of the Mac. A file that starts with a dot is > >assumed to be a driver resource, and if you try to open it, the system > >tries to open a driver in the system file. and BOOM... > >You just have to not name files starting with a dot. > > Hm, this could be more of a problem than first meets the eye... > > Unix happens to like files with periods at the beginning of their > names. > Now, ordinarily, this would cause no problem for the Finder, because > the Finder shouldn't mess with Unix files. But now we have > AppleShare... > > I regularly use AppleShare to mount my Unix directory on my Mac over > EtherTalk. This gives me easy access to my Unix files (and makes it > really easy to use files pulled off comp.binaries.mac!). Does this > mean that if I dare try to do anything with my .login, or .cshrc, or > .emacs, or .anythingelse from the Finder, my Mac will go bye-byes? > The initial diagnosis of the problem is faulty, or at least not complete. Unfortunately, I don't know what the cause of the first poster's symptoms is myself. In the never ending process of resolving INIT conflicts, many people rename files with a "." at the beginning ("." is alphabetically prior to "A", and is visible, unlike "<space>"). This has never caused Finder copy problems. As to Appleshare conflicts, I just copied several files with dot-prefixes and dot-slash-prefixes from my internal HD to local and remote A-share servers and back; no problems reported. This is on 6.0.3, Multifinder, SE/30, loads-o-inits. Look elsewhere for the solution. -- _ _|\____ Nick Jackiw | Visual Geometry Project | Math Department / /_/ O> \ ------------+-------------------------+ Swarthmore College | O> | 215-328-8225| jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu| Swarthmore PA 19081 \_Guernica_/ ------------+-------------------------+ USA
peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) (12/05/89)
In article <17567@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> erics@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Eric Schlegel) writes: >This is a known feature (??) of the Mac. A file that starts with a dot is >assumed to be a driver resource, and if you try to open it, the system >tries to open a driver in the system file. and BOOM... I don't seem to have any problems with opening or copying files that start with a period, or even a "./" as the original poster had. There were some Pascal libraries that would open up a driver if you specified a filename that started with a dot, so you could easily send stuff to ".AOut" for example (or at least I assume that's how they worked). I've still got a couple of dumb programs that create a file ".BOut" whenever they run; I assume they were linked with a version of the library that didn't do that. -- Steve Peltz (almost) CFI-G "Monticello traffic, Glider 949 landing 18, full stop"
nicky@cup.portal.com (nick john pilch) (12/10/89)
Nick Jackiw writes: [regarding file names beginning with a period] >The initial diagnosis of the problem is faulty, or at least not complete. >Unfortunately, I don't know what the cause of the first poster's symptoms >is myself. I disagree. It is documented (Inside Mac I believe) that filenames beginning with a period are not recommended. I believe it also says that programs should prevent the user from doing this. MPW is the only one I know of so far that does. Unfortunately, the Finder doesn't prevent it. We just became aware of the potential problems recently and I plan to put this check in our program immediately. I have had numerous problems and bombs when trying to manipulate files whose names begin with a period. Nick Pilch Moutain Lake Software nicky@cup.portal.com
peirce@claris.com (Michael Peirce) (12/12/89)
In article <24868@cup.portal.com> nicky@cup.portal.com (nick john pilch) writes: >Nick Jackiw writes: > >[regarding file names beginning with a period] > >>The initial diagnosis of the problem is faulty, or at least not complete. >>Unfortunately, I don't know what the cause of the first poster's symptoms >>is myself. > >I disagree. It is documented (Inside Mac I believe) that filenames beginning >with a period are not recommended. I believe it also says that programs >should prevent the user from doing this. MPW is the only one I know of so >far that does. Unfortunately, the Finder doesn't prevent it. > >We just became aware of the potential problems recently and I plan to put >this check in our program immediately. I have had numerous problems and >bombs when trying to manipulate files whose names begin with a period. > I ran into this too. Certain calls work with .XXX files and others don't (this was using MPW Pascal). I "fixed" this by prepending a ":" to the filename if the filename is < the maximum length for a filename. This seemed to fix things for me. (but still not for the filename of maximum size starting with a period!) Claris Corp. | Michael R. Peirce -------------+-------------------------------------- | 5201 Patrick Henry Drive MS-C4 | Box 58168 | Santa Clara, CA 95051-8168 | (408) 987-7319 | AppleLink: peirce1 | Internet: peirce@claris.com | uucp: {ames,decwrl,apple,sun}!claris!peirce