On May 6, 2005, at 12:12 AM, Robert Purves wrote: > > Brian Stevens wrote: > >> On May 5, 2005, at 6:14 AM, Robert Purves wrote: >>> To change a file's visibility, you must have ownership rights. I >>> suspect that the error code, if you can determine it, will turn out >>> to be _afpAccessDenied (-5000 Insufficient access privileges for >>> operation). >> >> Indeed, the error is -5000. Permissions for the file are: >> -rw-r--r-- 1 brianste staff 68 5 May 16:49 which is >> exactly what they are for Panther. > > The file in question is owned by brianste; in OS X 10.4 only a process > owned by brianste or by root will be able to make that file invisible > by setting the kIsInvisible Finder flag. Presumably the FB app that > fails to change the file's visibility attribute is being run by a user > different from brianste. I don't understand how such a file came to > exist in that user's filesystem. Is there more to the story than you > have told so far? Those permissions were screen printed from my machine but they are exactly (except for the user name) the same as my user. The file was/is created by my application and is a relic of some old app code that has never been updated. If I were doing this today, a different method would be used. I'm waiting on my user to try another test which will (hopefully) tell us if the specific type creator used is an issue. > >> I've downloaded Apple Technote FL37 "You want permission to do >> what?!!", so that should be interesting reading. > > That Technote predates OS X and is obsolete. Many aspects of the file > system were radically changed in OS X. Moreover, Tiger made additional > low-level changes in the way a file's meta-data is stored. (Meta-data > includes UNIX permissions, Apple-special attributes such as > FinderInfo, and the new ACL). > Yes, it is obsolete. When selecting from all the hits received from a search on the Apple web site the title seemed appropriate. It was only after downloading that I realized it was aimed at OS 9. Brian S. > Robert P. > > -- >