Re: Dot files
Re: Dot files
- Subject: Re: Dot files
- From: "Gary (Lists)" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 13:03:25 -0400
"Ruth Bygrave" wrote:
> Why do I get unwanted dot files (.DS Store and _DS Store)? on my flash drive?
> Sometimes there are also ghost files (hidden files of 1k with the same name as
> an actual file) which stop the flash drive working properly.
>
> I have a vague idea these are to do with Spotlight indexing or something
"Or something" is accurate, Spotlight is not. The "or something" is the
Finder, and the files are harmless (unsightly to a non-Mac machine, but
harmless.)
And, I very much doubt that they cause your drive to "stop ... working
properly." Sorry, but I just don't see that as a possibility.
"J. Stewart" wrote:
>
> How is your flashdrive formatted? MSDOS or HFS(+), since you are using it to
> transfer files to a PC it should be MSDOS. This will cause difficulties when a
> file has a resource fork as MSDOS doesn't recognize them.
This is not accurate either. Particularly, the last sentence is incorrect.
Resource fork files are not transferred to the DOS disk intact (they create
"dot files") and therefore the DOS disk has no problem dealing with a
"resource fork": there isn't one.
"Merrie" wrote:
> If you are using your flash cross-platform there is little point in
> reformatting it to DOS as all non-Mac PCs will not be able to read it. You
> will simply have to put up with those teeny little files displaying.
This makes no sense to me at all. Wouldn't "non-Mac PCs" primarily _be_
DOS-format capable readers? I think "yes". Perhaps you meant something
else?
I normally would not weigh-in on this topic, firstly because it has nothing
to do with AppleScript at all, and secondly because it is really very easy
to deal with and many answers to these questions are easily found on Google
and elsewhere.
But, because last week I bought my first USB flash drive so that I could
transfer a 168-page book to the local offset printer, I _did_ employ some
AppleScript later (after the fact) to remove some of these files (for
space-savings and pretty-viewing only.)
The ".DS_Store" discussion is well-covered. Those are Finder-created files
dealing with the Finder's view of a folder. They can be removed by
AppleScript, by the shell's 'zip' command or even by OS9 Classic (which sees
them.)
The "other dot files" which get created are the resource-fork information.
Take my own example, which was a book with some Photoshop images and such.
So, the printer wanted the images also, separately from the book, in case
there were any problems with the images. So, I put these on the disk as
well.
When I transferred these files to the DOS-formatted disk, the images files
transferred their resource fork as well, but as a "dot file" which was the
name of the file preceded by the 'dot'. These files represent the thumbnail
image that I would normally see in the Finder and so on. They are not
useful in the DOS/Windows environment, but they are not problematic to any
operation. They do take up some small space, and they do appear in a
directory listing on the non-Mac machine, but they do not interfere with any
flash disk operation.
But, if your flash disk was Mac formatted -- like mine is now -- then you
would _want_ (generally) to _keep_ these files. This way, when you insert
the flash disk into another Mac, that Mac has the advantages of the resource
data -- the window view, thumbnails, etc.
What you might find also interesting is that if you Zip a Pages document,
you will notice in the Zip progress display that the pages document is
Zipping all your image files, as well as a "dot version" of them. Pages
documents are not files, they are bundles, and when you insert an image into
a Pages document, it is actually copied into the bundle. When that
document (bundle) is zipped, then the "dot files" are zipped along with it,
unless you either make your own zip script or use a tool which allows to
ignore resource fork and other "dot files" when zipping.
In a nutshell, these "dot files" are not of any concern to humans. They can
be removed or not and they cause no harm. If you intend to use the flash
disk with another Mac, then you can either re-format the disk or you can
remove the "dot files" by script (several have been offered here.)
I wrote a little AppleScript droplet which will scrub a folder dropped on it
of all these files, and it will also scrub Pages bundles to remove any such
files -- because for long-term storage, I don't need a thumbnail and such
and I want minimalist files.
Anyway, there are plenty of small and even over-kill tools for removing such
files if you don't want to write your own few lines of AppleScript or if you
don't want to write your own AppleScript wrapper for Zipping files and
removing these along the way.
But, they are not cause for alarm nor are they the cause of a flash disk not
working properly.
--
Gary
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