Re: What are these ._something files???
- From: Don Bruder <dakidd@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 12:10:57 -0800
In article <442ecd8a$0$272$8046368a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"John N. Alegre" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When I do work from the bash shell(OS X 10.4.5), I often find files in
directories that are ._something where there is a file called something.
What is going on here? Anybody have a clue? Naturally they are hidden and
never show up in finder windows.
john
Various unix-related files - Closely related to (but distinct from)
"Classic MacOS" style "prefs" files.
Don't mess with them if you don't know *EXACTLY* what you're doing, or
you're likely to find yourself wondering why your machine is suddenly
behaving strangely - or worse, not working AT ALL!
The Finder automatically "hides" files that start with ".", since "Joe
User" rarely, if ever, has any reason to mess with them directly, and
frequently, not enough knowledge to do so without screwing things up.
When you're in the shell instead of the finder, the assumption (not
always correct, but there it is anyway...) is that you've got the
knowledge to be messing around "down on the metal" and aren't going to
shoot yourself in the foot by playing with things you don't understand,
so you get to see *EVERYTHING*. Some of those are quite simple - You may
have noticed one named ".newsrc", for instance - That's a list of your
subscribed newsgroups and which messages in them you've read. Another
that's going to be present is .bashrc or .cshrc - Each of them are
"preference" settings and related info for (respectively) the bash and
csh shells. Many, many, *MANY* others may or may not exist on a
particular machine, depending on exactly what's installed, how many
users it's set up to support, and a bucket full of other variables.
Many other programs will use their own files, frequently, but not
exclusively, named ".<program-name>rc" - In each case, it's a file of
various settings or other data that the program needs to persist across
runs, and unless you know the exact layout and contents the program
expects to find in the file, you shouldn't mess with it if you want the
program (or, depending on exactly which file you decide to play with,
perhaps the entire operating system) to keep working as you expect it
to. Each one is (usually) a pretty close analog of the same program's
"<something>.prefs" file that you would have found living in "Startup
Disk:System Folder:Preferences" back in the days of MacOS 9 and before.
In most cases, you can "cat", "more", or "less" them if you're curious
as to what's inside. Most of the time, they're going to be plaintext
files that will be easily viewable, but the contents may be meaningless
to you and I without detailed knowledge of how the program uses the
file. Of course, there are going to be the inevitable exceptions that
store binary data that'll send your terminal window all kinds of wonky
if you cat, more, or less them, but those aren't generally all that
common.
--
Don Bruder - dakidd@xxxxxxxxx - If your "From:" address isn't on my whitelist,
or the subject of the message doesn't contain the exact text "PopperAndShadow"
somewhere, any message sent to this address will go in the garbage without my
ever knowing it arrived. Sorry... <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd> for more info
.
- References:
- What are these ._something files???
- From: John N. Alegre
- What are these ._something files???
- Prev by Date: Re: What are these ._something files???
- Next by Date: Re: Apple Migration Assistant: USB Drive? (because of problems with Target Disk Mode)
- Previous by thread: Re: What are these ._something files???
- Next by thread: Re: What are these ._something files???
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
