Re: [MacPerl] -s File Test Operator

[online@mactech.com (Jeff at MacTech)]

In article <mac-perl.19980721080314.A7745@schinder.clark.net>, "Paul J.
Schinder" <schinder@pobox.com> wrote:

>On Tue, Jul 21, 1998 at 07:34:49AM -0400, Chris Nandor wrote:
>} 
>} I'd just call it a "behavior".  At worst, I suppose you could call it a
>} misfeature or poor decision, because it was probably intentional.
>} 
>} Matthias, is there any reason not to change this to do data+resource forks?
>
>What, you want to break all my scripts that rely on documented
>behavior and use -s to get the size of the data fork?

I guess it would be bad to break already-running scripts in a non-obvious
way. On the other hand, if -s is supposed to return the size of a file, it
doesn't do that. It seems more natural to me to have to do something
platform-dependent when I want the size of only one fork, and something
platform-neutral when I want the size of the whole file. I wonder which
file property is more often sought? (PS--where is the current behavior
documented? I didn't see it in the pods.)

>On the other hand, it would be nice if the resource fork size were a
>little easier to get.  Maybe one of the - operators that don't have any
>meaning under MacOS can be pressed into service (-r?).

That might be a good idea, the worry being that it would be harder to warn
that -r doesn't work as usual on the Mac--if you brought over a Unix
script containing -r it would be harder to give an appropriate warning.
-- 
__________________________________________________________________________

Jeff Clites                Online Editor           http://www.MacTech.com/
online@MacTech.com         MacTech Magazine
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