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Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:22:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: revisiting: windows .lnk working in cygwin;            theoretical solution
From: "Benjamin Madore" <bcmadore AT cs DOT pitt DOT edu>
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On Thu, November 30, 2006 1:42 am, Linda Walsh said:
>
> Current problem, as I understand it is that current *nix apps wouldn't see
the extra windows fields, so if tar were to dump/restore, the extra
information would be lost.
>
This, of course, has been a pickle several times for Apple. On the Apple IIgs'
GSOS, forked files were implemented (EAs are just a forked file
implementation, or vice-versa, or the same idea at least). Several utilities
were created that could archive the GSOS files for transport across ProDos8
and BBS systems.

More recently, Apple modified their BSD Unix utilities that are part of OSX to
handle HFS resource forks and program bundles. Both, again, analogous to NTFS
streams. They even automatically split and merge forks across foreign file
systems like ext* and FAT. (The OSX Betas did not do this very well. There
were special file manipulation tools then.)

> I believe (please correct me if I'm incorrect), but this is already a
problem -- cygwin tar and cousins already cannot backup and restore windows
files with an expectation of success except in limited
> circumstances.  Failure cases, I believe (but may not be limited to): 1)
dumping and restoring files containing ACLs.  This one may be possible
through POSIX extensions, but since NT and Posix ACLs differ, restored ACL's
may not match the original ACL's.
> 2) NT streams.  One can use a type of Extended Attribute known
> as a "Stream" that is hidden from the normal user interface but
> accessible by "filename:stream".  From the MS website, they see
> Extended attributes to hold:...
>
> Linda W

Look at programs like ShrinkIT for the Apple II and formats like BinHex and
MacBinary for HFS. Separate NTFS-aware Cygwin programs may have to developed
just as with those platforms.

Well, it's a thought for solving the problem. No point in re-inventing a wheel.



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