[Openmcl-devel] logical pathnames not working with alias

[Chun Tian (binghe)]

Hi, Gray Byers

On 2008-11-14, at 10:12, Gary Byers wrote:
>
> I'm probably not a typical Mac user, but if someone had told me that
> alias support had been removed from OSX a few releases ago or planned
> to do so in the next relase, I wouldn't have been shocked.  The Finder

As I know, the "Alias" facility of HFS can make a "hard link" for  
directories, which couldn't be done by UNIX hard link. This function  
is essential in Apple's "Time Machine" auto-backup software which  
ships with Leopard (10.5), I don't think it will be removed in near  
future.

When look at a "Alias" in OS X's Terminal shell, it's just a empty  
file with extend attribute mark (+). So I'm pretty sure it works by  
support from HFS itself, not just implemented by Cocoa, like all kinds  
of Bundles.

>
> still offers some level of support for aliases; large parts of OSX
> never have.  I'd assume that Apple will eventually reconcile this
> disparity, and if I had to bet I'd bet on that being done by dropping
> the partial support for aliases that still exists.  (If they were to
> reconcile it the other way - by supporting aliases at the BSD layer -
> fine, but I'd imagine that the motivation for doing that wouldn't be
> very high.)
>
> There are some differences between aliases and links, but there are
> a lot of similarities.


--binghe