Legacy Document
Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development.
Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development.
Data Structures
A catalog file exists on every volume to maintain relationships between the files and directories on that volume. (A volume is any storage medium formatted to contain files.) Although it's used mostly by the File Manager, the catalog file also contains information used by the Finder. The information for files is listed in file information records and extended file information records; the information for directories is listed in directory information records and extended directory information records.Normally, your application sets the file type and the creator information in fields of a file information record when your application creates a new file. (For a complete discussion of the File Manager and the functions available for creating files, see Inside Macintosh: Files.) The Finder manipulates the other fields in the file information record. You can check the information in this record by calling the File Manager function
FSpGetFInfoorPBGetCatInfo. In particular, you may want to check the file type or creator for a file, or you may want to check or set one of your document's Finder flags.The Finder manipulates the fields in the extended file information, directory information, and extended directory information records; your application shouldn't have to
directly check or set any of these fields. These data structures are described here for
completeness.
Subtopics
- File Information Record
- Extended File Information Record
- Directory Information Record
- Extended Directory Information Record