full path name

[wes]

I am a Windows programmer, so I got a very simple question regarding
the full path name in Mac.

I use MoreFiles library to convert a FSSpec to full path name, I found
out that the full path name is in "Drive:data:...." style instead of
"Drive/data/...". I wonder what is the convention for a Mac
appliaction to display a full path name?

[David Phillip Oster]

In article <5fb7ca71.0309041311.f22cda2@posting.google.com> ,
[email]wkung@hotmail.com[/email] (wes) wrote:

> I am a Windows programmer, so I got a very simple question regarding
> the full path name in Mac.
>
> I use MoreFiles library to convert a FSSpec to full path name, I found
> out that the full path name is in "Drive:data:...." style instead of
> "Drive/data/...". I wonder what is the convention for a Mac
> appliaction to display a full path name?

An series of lines, each one indented more than the previous one, with
small icons of folders for the intermediate lines, follwed by the name
of that folder. The first line has the small icon of the disk, and the
last one has the small icon of the file. Since the user may have
customized any of those icons (by pasting a picture into the Get Info
box of that specific folder, disk, or file) the actual images are looked
up at runtime.

You can command click on the name in the title bar of most recent
document based apps to see the hierarchy in this multi-line way.

See MacWindows.h for details on proxy icons in the title bar to see how
this is implemented.

Aside from that, most applications don't display full paths.

[Simon Slavin]

In article <5fb7ca71.0309041311.f22cda2@posting.google.com> ,
[email]wkung@hotmail.com[/email] (wes) wrote:

>I use MoreFiles library to convert a FSSpec to full path name, I found
>out that the full path name is in "Drive:data:...." style instead of
>"Drive/data/...". I wonder what is the convention for a Mac
>appliaction to display a full path name?

Mac applications never display a full path name. Full path
names are for computers, not humans.

If you want to show a user which folder or document you're
talking about, provide a button which tells the Finder to
reveal it.

[Frederick Cheung]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 [email]slavins@hearsay.demon.co.uk[/email] wrote:

> In article <5fb7ca71.0309041311.f22cda2@posting.google.com> ,
> [email]wkung@hotmail.com[/email] (wes) wrote:
>

> >I use MoreFiles library to convert a FSSpec to full path name, I found
> >out that the full path name is in "Drive:data:...." style instead of
> >"Drive/data/...". I wonder what is the convention for a Mac
> >appliaction to display a full path name?

>
> Mac applications never display a full path name. Full path
> names are for computers, not humans.
>
> If you want to show a user which folder or document you're
> talking about, provide a button which tells the Finder to
> reveal it.

There are some legitimate uses of full paths names. (eg the access paths
list in one of the CW preferences panes). Mac OS 9 style full paths aren't much use to
computers either as they are not unique.

Fred

[Joe Davison]

On 4 Sep 2003, [email]wkung@hotmail.com[/email] wrote:

> I am a Windows programmer, so I got a very simple question regarding
> the full path name in Mac.
>
> I use MoreFiles library to convert a FSSpec to full path name, I
> found out that the full path name is in "Drive:data:...." style
> instead of "Drive/data/...". I wonder what is the convention for a
> Mac appliaction to display a full path name?

Don't know the answer to the final question, but I will say there is
this problem -- the path separator changed between OS 9 and OS X, to
over simplify things a bit.

Drive:data:... style is pre-OS X (old "macintosh")
/Drive/data/... style is OS X (old "unix")

Be aware that the HFS+ (and HFS) file systems aren't case sensitive,
which is a nice trap if you're coming from another OS. That is,
/Drive/data/myfile and /Drive/data/MyFile are equivalent paths. Some
applications, of course, won't accept "MyFile" as matching "myfile" --
but the file system will. Biggest impact is applications that have
needed files that differ only in case -- when you untar 'em, all but the
last file with such names gets overwritten...

joe

[Simon Slavin]

In article <Pine.LNX.4.44.0309070125510.4669-100000@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk>,
Frederick Cheung <fglc2@srcf.DUH.ucam.org> wrote:

>On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 [email]slavins@hearsay.demon.co.uk[/email] wrote:
>

>> Mac applications never display a full path name. Full path
>> names are for computers, not humans.
>>
>> If you want to show a user which folder or document you're
>> talking about, provide a button which tells the Finder to
>> reveal it.

>
>There are some legitimate uses of full paths names.

Oh sure -- for a programmer or for a computer. But any mundane
user should never have to figure out what a full path means.
If the computer is trying to indicate a particular folder it
should show the user that folder.