Inside Macintosh: Files /

Chapter 4 - Alias Manager

Using the Alias Manager

You use the Alias Manager primarily to create and resolve alias records. You can also use it to get information about and update alias records.

The Alias Manager creates an alias record in memory and provides you with a handle to the record. When you no longer need a record in memory, free the memory by calling the Memory Manager's DisposeHandle procedure. Whenever possible, you should store and retrieve alias records as resources of type 'alis'.

Alias Manager functions accept and return file specifications in the form of FSSpec records, which contain a volume reference number, a parent directory ID, and a
target name. See the chapter "File Manager" in this book for a description of file identification conventions.

Before calling any of the Alias Manager functions, you should verify that the
Alias Manager is available by calling the Gestalt function with a selector of gestaltAliasMgrAttr. If Gestalt sets the gestaltAliasMgrPresent
bit in the response parameter, the Alias Manager is present.

For more detailed descriptions of the functions described in this section, see "Alias Manager Reference" beginning on page 4-13.

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Subtopics

Creating Alias Records

Resolving Alias Records

Maintaining Alias Records

Getting Information From Alias Records

Customizing Alias Records