Subject: Re: Hidden Files Not Being Copied
From: Danny Sauer (dsauer@teleologic.net)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 14:17:52 EST
Ray wrote regarding 'Re: Hidden Files Not Being Copied' on Thu, Jan 18 at 13:12:
> At 6:20 PM +0000 1/18/01, Peter Westlake wrote:
> >I think changing the name is a really bad idea. If you try to duplicate
> >a folder, you should get a duplicate. There's no reason not to have the
> >dot on a Mac. If you really are duplicating, or if you are copying to
> >another Unix directory, then you should get a true copy when you look
> >at it from the Unix side. The dot prefix is only treated specially by
> >"ls" and a few other programs - it doesn't really mean "invisible". To
> >most programs, it is just part of the file's name. I suggest that if
> >you are doing an actual Duplicate operation (command-D), then the dotted
> >files should be copied. If you are copying the files to the Mac, it should
> >be optional whether they are ignored, copied, or copied and made invisible.
>
> I think that if a dotfile on Unix is going to translate to an
> invisible on the Mac side, then it has to strip the dot and the
> translation has to go both ways, otherwise you run into trouble.
>
> In the scenarios you mentioned, it wouldn't be a problem. If you
> duplicate or copy a Unix directory with dotfiles, the Mac would see
> them as invisible non-dotfiles which netatalk would translate back to
> dotfiles when writing the copy.
>
> An example of a problem if it doesn't strip the dot would go
> something like this. You copy an invisible file called 'foo' from Mac
> to a netatalk volume. On the *nix side you would have a file called
> '.foo'. Copy that back to the Mac and you have an invisible file
> called '.foo'. Copy that back to your netatalk volume and now you
> have a file called '..foo'.
What's wrong with "if it has a dot and is MacInvisible, leave alone, else,
add a dot" combined with "leave the filename alone otherwise"? That's
*my* preference... I don't like filenames being screwed with in any but
the most absolutely neccesary cases.
--Danny, not following this thread closely enough to know if that's already
been suggested
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sun Oct 14 2001 - 03:04:31 EDT