Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] Unix command support for AppleDouble files

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 14:24:33 PST

>	Usually for us the issue is a file not being able to be
>	opened by its application on a Mac, as a result of the
>	resource fork not being there, or it having the wrong
>	permissions.

This is the most common problem here too, because somebody messed up the name or
location relationship of the two parts of a file.  But there are other problems
too, read on.

>	But does it cause system problems of any sort, when
>	a .AppleDouble file sits out there with no match in
>	its parent directory?

Orphaned ".AppleDouble" files don't bother netatalk directly, it never even
looks at them, so there is no system-level problem other than the space these
files take up.  But they can cause problems of a more subtle sort.  Suppose you
drag a file into a netatalk-shared directory from the Mac, let's call it
"testfile" and let's say it's an Excel worksheet (just an example, I've had this
happen with two different applications).  Then you go to that directory from the
Unix side and "rm testfile", which leaves an orphan in ".AppleDouble/testfile". 
Later on you use a Unix text editor to create another file called "testfile" in
the directory.  Now when you look in the directory through netatalk, "testfile"
appears to be an Excel file, because the new Unix-created "testfile" got paired
with the old Mac-created ".AppleDouble/testfile".  But of course when you try to
double-click on the file, Excel chokes on it.  The extension mappings from
AppleVolumes.system don't apply because as far as netatalk can tell the file has
already been explictly set to Excel's creator and type.

I have been trying to handle this by educating the users, but despite repeated
explanations some of them just aren't catching on to how netatalk works.  I'd
much rather have the Unix commands automatically deal with the netatalk
complications.

Bob Smith
Hammett & Edison, Inc.
[email-masked]

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From: "Gerry.Tomlinson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 17:59:33 +0100 (BST)

> location relationship of the two parts of a file.

My utility afile, which I've improved since I first announced it,
will report on various inconsistencies between data fork and AppleDouble
header as well as, or instead of, displaying the type/creator info. You
can now apply it to an AppleDouble header file as well as a data file.
It's available from

ftp://ftp.ncl.ac.uk/pub/users/ngmt/netatalk/afile.tgz

which also includes an rc script, acleandir, to "clean up" netatalk
directories.  acleandir has various options to vary the amount of
"cleaning", delete files interactively etc.

	Gerry

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[email-masked]
Computing Officer
Department of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Tel: +44 191 222 8139
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.             Fax: +44 191 222 8232