wrs@cmu-cs-wb1.ARPA (Walter Smith) (08/06/85)
One existing implementation of "parallel" file attribute areas:
Every file on the Apple Macintosh has two "forks": the data fork, which
corresponds to what everyone normally thinks of as a "file", and the
resource fork, where resources are kept. The forks are accessed in exactly
the same way, only you get the data fork descriptor when you Open() and the
resource fork descriptor when you OpenResFile(). The resource fork is often
used to store file attributes. For example, Apple's text file editor stores
information about your favorite font and size for a file in the file's
resource fork. There is a higher-level interface to the resource data
(called the Resource Manager) that provides for giving resources names,
types, and ID numbers and adding, deleting, and modifying resources.
--
Walter Smith, CS undergraduate, Carnegie-Mellon University
uucp: ...!seismo!cmu-cs-k!wrs arpa: wrs@cmu-cs-k.ARPA
usps: 5141 Forbes Ave.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213tim@cithep.UucP (Tim Smith ) (08/09/85)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: file attributes ( actually Macintosh file system )
References: <232@cmu-cs-wb1.ARPA>
But the Mac does not have pipes or IO redirection. Hence the problem of
knowing what is IN a file does not come up. The only general purpose
programs that look at a MusicWorks file, for example, are MusicWorks and
the Finder ( and the Finder just looks enough to find out that MusicWorks
should be dealing with the file ).
Comparing the Mac to UNIX is quite interesting. For example, it is not
clear that pipes on a machine like the Mac would be anywhere near as
useful as they are on UNIX. Most of the stuff poeple send down pipes
is ascii text, whereas on a Mac, one does not tend to have very many
text files. Grep UNIX | wc on a MacWrite file, for example, would not
be very likely to find the number of occurences of the word "UNIX".
I find that I like many of the ideas in the Mac file system, and I like most
of the ideas in the UNIX file system, but I don't see any good way to combine
the best of both without hurting either. But it's fun to try!
--
Tim Smith
ihnp4!{wlbr!callan,cithep}!timlevy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (08/11/85)
tim@cithep.UucP (Tim Smith ) <103@cithep.UucP>: >text files. Grep UNIX | wc on a MacWrite file, for example, would not >be very likely to find the number of occurences of the word "UNIX". It is also not guaranteed to do so on a Unix text file either. It is left to an exercise to the reader how to implement this as a pipeline. -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer, my pets, my plants, my boss, or the | at&t computer systems division | s.a. of any computer upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | | "go for it" | Path: ..!ihnp4!ttrdc!levy -------------------------------- or: ..!ihnp4!iheds!ttbcad!levy