I will illustrate a use case of my issue.
I have here two files which happen to be the Finder 7.5.5
and Finder 8.1
from legacy Mac OS versions.
If I use Cmd + I
I get the following information:
Version:
7.5.5, © Apple Computer, Inc. 1983-96
System 7.5 Version 7.5.3
and
Version:
8.1, Copyright Apple Computer, Inc. 1983-97
Mac OS 8.1
I want to extract these information programatically. However, I am not even sure where it is being hold.
In a small Objective-C project (Foundation) I did the following for the 7.5
file:
NSString * finder7 = [[NSString alloc] initWithString:@"/Users/me/Desktop/Finder7"];
NSFileManager * fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
NSError * error = nil;
NSDictionary * attr = [fileManager attributesOfItemAtPath:finder7 error:&error];
NSLog(@"%@", attr);
This is the output:
2013-09-25 10:53:30.224 GetAttributes[1164:903] {
NSFileCreationDate = "1996-01-15 12:00:00 +0000";
NSFileExtensionHidden = 0;
NSFileGroupOwnerAccountID = 20;
NSFileGroupOwnerAccountName = staff;
NSFileHFSCreatorCode = 1296122707;
NSFileHFSTypeCode = 1179534418;
NSFileModificationDate = "1996-01-15 12:00:00 +0000";
NSFileOwnerAccountID = 501;
NSFileOwnerAccountName = me;
NSFilePosixPermissions = 493;
NSFileReferenceCount = 1;
NSFileSize = 0;
NSFileSystemFileNumber = 4384377;
NSFileSystemNumber = 234881026;
NSFileType = NSFileTypeRegular;
}
As you can see, there is no reference to version or copyright. I can't open the "app's content" because legacy applications obviously don't have it.
So I figured it could be an extended attribute, so I got the console and did this:
$ ls -l@
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 me staff 0 15 Jan 1996 Finder7
com.apple.FinderInfo 32
com.apple.ResourceFork 503994
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 me staff 3631000 16 Dec 1997 Finder8
com.apple.FinderInfo 32
com.apple.ResourceFork 502012
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment 42
Then I found these entries in each of them:
$ xattr -l com.apple.FinderInfo Finder7
(...)
00077AE0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00077AF0 00 00 32 07 55 80 00 00 00 05 37 2E 35 2E 35 25 |..2.U.....7.5.5%|
00077B00 37 2E 35 2E 35 2C 20 A9 20 41 70 70 6C 65 20 43 |7.5.5, . Apple C|
00077B10 6F 6D 70 75 74 65 72 2C 20 49 6E 63 2E 20 31 39 |omputer, Inc. 19|
00077B20 38 33 2D 39 36 00 00 00 2B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |83-96...+.......|
(...)
$ xattr -l com.apple.FinderInfo Finder8
(...)
00077330 06 46 69 6E 64 65 72 00 00 00 00 00 00 36 08 10 |.Finder......6..|
00077340 80 00 00 00 03 38 2E 31 2B 38 2E 31 2C 20 43 6F |.....8.1+8.1, Co|
00077350 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 20 41 70 70 6C 65 20 43 6F |pyright Apple Co|
00077360 6D 70 75 74 65 72 2C 20 49 6E 63 2E 20 31 39 38 |mputer, Inc. 198|
00077370 33 2D 39 37 00 00 00 26 01 08 10 80 00 06 46 69 |3-97...&......Fi|
00077380 6E 64 65 72 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |nder............|
(...)
I never really used extended attributes, specially in a development. So here I need some light. I see the version numbers are in different positions. How can I get this information straight like the OSX Finder does? I spent several minutes to do it manually and still is not clear to me how the version is stored. Is there other place I can find this information or am I going in the right direction?
Are there Objective-C or C solutions that will do this so I don't need to reinvent the wheel?
I appreciate the help!
I also tried checking rsrc
. Found an easter egg just before the version number.