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Finder Information and Low-Level File System Operations

If your code operates on the file system at a low level and handles Finder information, keep in mind that the file system does not swap bytes for the following information:

• The finderInfo field in the HFSPlus data structures HFSCatalogFolder, HFSPlusCatalogFolder, HFSCatalogFile, HFSPlusCatalogFile, and HFSPlusVolumeHeader.

• The FSPermissionInfo data structure, which is used when the constant kFSCatInfoPermissions is passed to the HFSPlus functions FSGetCatalogInfo and FSGetCatalogInfoBulk.

The value of multibyte fields on disk always uses big-endian format. When running on a little-endian system, you must swap the bytes of any multibyte fields.

The getattrlist function retrieves the metadata associated with a file. The getxattr function, added in Mac OS X v10.4, retrieves extended attributes—those that are an extension of the basic set of attributes. When using the getxattr function to access the legacy attribute "com.apple.FinderInfo", note that as with getattrlist, the information returned by this call is not byte swapped. (For more information on the getxattr and getattrlist functions see Mac OS X Man Pages.)

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