Introduction

The Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) allows users of multiple computers to share files easily and efficiently over a network.

This document describes the AFP wire protocol at a conceptual level. For detailed information about the request blocks that an AFP client sends to an AFP server and the reply blocks that an AFP server sends to an AFP client in response to a request block, see Apple Filing Protocol Reference.

Note that all values exchanged between an AFP client and an AFP server are sent over the network in network byte order.

Organization of This Document

This book contains the following chapters:

• Apple Filing Protocol Concepts describes the concepts used in the AFP architecture.

• Using Login Commands describes the commands used to open and close a connection with a file server.

• Using Volume Commands describes the commands for interacting with a file server volume.

• Using Directory Commands describes the commands for using directories.

• Using File Commands describes the commands for working on files.

• Using Combined Directory and File Commands describes commands that can be used on both files and directories.

• Using Fork Commands describes the commands to interact with data forks.

• Using Desktop Database Commands describes the commands to read and write information store in the server's desktop database.