Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'Resource forks ?' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Resource forks ?
Authored by: JBucanek on May 29, '04 10:57:22AM

Greetings,

As the co-author of the ChangeShortName utility, I can assure you that mv is perfectly safe and appropriate in this context.

First of all, mv preserves all resource fork and meta-data information when used to move or rename directory entries on the same logical device. mv only has problems with resource forks when asked to move a file from one logical device to another, in which case it switches to its 'cp' mode where is actually copies that file. In this mode, it uses the same code to copy the file as cp, with all of the attendant problems.

The ChangeShortName script (a) doesn't copy anything, and (b) doesn't move anything with resource forks or meta-data.

It renames the user's home directory, keychain, crontab, Samba shares, and http configurations; None of which will cause any files to be copied. It does make working copies of the httpd config files and the NetInfo database in /tmp. But these files should always be on the same volume as the source, so no copy would ever occur. Even if the user has done something radical, like relocated their /tmp directory to another volume, it's still harmless because none of these files contain any resource or meta-data information. They are all simple, flat, UNIX files which mv can copy without any problems.

Please contact Dan or I if you have any questions.



[ Reply to This | # ]