On Mar 10, 2006, at 11:47 PM, Joe Lertola wrote: > Do I really need to switch all my file references to FSSpecs? This depends on lots of factors. If you are looking for just the quick fix then no. However, be advised that even FSSpecs are deprecated and probably soon to be dropped completely by Apple. The file references and their continued support by Staz should be viewed as a bridge of time until your code can be converted. Quick fixes now will mean just delaying the upgrades until later. Personally, I like to upgrade my code once. btw: carbon programs can use FSSpecs and FSRefs and your code is positioned for the future. So they will still run in OS 9. However, the reverse is not true. At some point technology relying old volume reference technology will break and it is probably sooner than later given Apple's recent efforts. > I thought I read in the docs that Staz had made old file references > work under Carbon. Also what is an FSRef? The following quote from Robert Purves explaining the history in a recent post might be helpful: "Under MFS on the first Macs, files were identified by two parameters: name and volume reference number. When HFS superseded MFS, the directory structure required an additional parameter: the parID. The official way to identify a file then became the FSSpec, which contains all three parameters. To allow MFS code to work under the new file system, Apple devised an hack known as a working directory. An unfortunate consequence was that many programs, even newly written ones, continued to use the old MFS API instead of switching to the new-in-1985 FSSpecs" See <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/mac/Files/Files-85.html> FSRefs have actually been around for a few years now and are essentially the successor to FSSpecs. More importantly, they are a so- called opaque structure that allows Apple flexibility in the future. Most of this is related or directly concerned with all the newer Apple Core Foundation (CF) technology and our ability to access it. If you aren't writing programs for OS X and specifically using Apple's new technologies such as CF and Quartz, you can probably relax. > > Where do you find out about functions like FSpDelete? I did not see > any references to that in the FB docs. It is an Apple toolbox, as mentioned in the previous post. Staz typically doesn't duplicate Apple's documentation on the toolbox calls since it is so easy to just go to their web site. There are some examples with this toolbox call but I'm not sure if they are on the CD yet. The way to get toolbox information is go to the Apple Developer web site. It is free. Also, if you have XCode installed on your OS X machine, all the documentation is included, so there is no need to go to the Apple web site > > I would love to see more file examples. My program is a file > translator and it does a lot of fine manipulation. Do you have the examples on the FB4 release 2 (the current release - GA) CD? That would be a good start. If you have a specific need, I'm sure someone can post a snippet. Also, Alain's MoreXFiles, while advanced, might give you some ideas. Do you have it? Brian S.