Re: Changing file & directory names

FROM : Adam R. Maxwell
DATE : Sun Jul 02 09:16:48 2006

On Jul 1, 2006, at 12:40, John Stiles wrote:

> Dean Snyder wrote:

>>
>> Again, with emphasis added, the documentation says, "creates a 
>> file at
>> destination that holds the exact contents of the original file and 
>> THEN
>> deletes the original file". That can only mean that at some point 
>> there
>> are 2 copies of the file. (Notice there is no talk of just 
>> manipulating
>> file references within the file manager's data structures.) That may
>> not, in fact, be what it does, but that IS what the documentation 
>> says
>> it does. And, of course, the issue is compounded when dealing with
>> directories (where the documentation actually talks about 
>> "duplicates of
>> the files and directories").
>>
>>

> Even if it really does just make hard links, even that has 
> undesirable consequences. For example, if a file has /ever/ been 
> hard-linked, it can no longer be used with FSExchangeObjects. The 
> API returns an error instead.
> http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Carbon/Reference/
> File_Manager/Reference/reference.html#//apple_ref/c/func/
> FSExchangeObjects


This is sort of tangential to the original question, but I wonder if 
this is why hard linked files cannot be saved with NSDocument/
NSDocumentController?  A user filed a bug report about this against 
an app I work on, and the only response I could come up with was 
"don't use hard links," which isn't very gratifying.  There's no way 
AFAICT to catch that error, either; it's the lame generic message.

Adam