10.4: Use SetFile utlity without Developer Tools install
Aug 02, '06 07:30:05AM • Contributed by: Anonymous
Aug 02, '06 07:30:05AM • Contributed by: Anonymous
You may not have noticed, but a number of recent Apple updates (eg. at least the 10.4.5 through 10.4.7 updates) have included the SetFile utility in their installer packages, leaving a copy in /Library/Receipts.
To find what is available on your system, try either of these commands (the first may include some unrelated results, but it's faster, assuming you've created the locate database) in Terminal (found in /Applications -> Utilities):
$ locate SetFile | xargs ls -lut
$ find /Library/Receipts -name SetFile | xargs ls -lut
SetFile will be familiar to many users as the handy command line tool for making files and folders visible / invisible (if their visibility isn't already being determined by something else), changing their type or creator codes, setting file creation date, or other functions, as detailed in its man page
So for example, if you have a PowerPC Mac, and the 10.4.7 update was installed with the Delta (not Combo) installer, and you have a folder on your Desktop" called Inviso, it should be possible to hide that folder with this command:
$ /Library/Packages/MacOSXUpd10.4.7PPC.pkg/\
Contents/Resources/SetFile -a V ~/Desktop/Inviso
Quit and restart the Finder (don't Force Quit or Relaunch from the Dock), or log out and back in for the change to take effect. Repeating the procedure, substituting v for V will reverse the change.
Maybe this will let users without the Developer Tools get in on the various MacOSXHints that call for SetFile, or save someone suffering from the appearance of a previously-hidden folder or symbolic link the bandwidth of downloading the entire Developer Tools package (version 2.3 weighs in at 915MB) just to get access to SetFile, which itself is only 41KB for the Universal binary.
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