Re: File types [was: Re: wide characters and i18n]

[Matthew Mondor <mm_lists%pulsar-zone.net@localhost>]

On 20 Jul 2010 11:00:40 +1000
Giles Lean <giles.lean%pobox.com@localhost> wrote:

> They're "alternate" data streams. Originally for program icons
> and such I believe.  Officially they're deprecated.
> Unofficially OS X applications and programmers can't quite
> give them up, seemingly.
> 
> Windows (starting with NT?) has something similar, but that
> I'm not familiar with.
> 
> For the record (and IMHO blah blah) resource forks are an
> outright bad idea: directories are _designed_ for keeping
> related data together.

Absolutely, especially for the security conscious when the default OS
distribution tools won't easily show the total size, all streams and
their respective size, with access to their contents (as is (or at
least was) the case on Windows).  I remember having to look at the
win32 API to write a tool for doing that, when I had the misfortune
of administering Windows systems...
-- 
Matt