Hello!

I'm sure this is just an error in the way I am implementing a command, but I am trying to do exercise 2a at the end of Chapter 2, and I am having trouble with the "GetFileInfo" command syntax in Darwin. Whenever I enter /Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo somedirectoryorfile, it gives me the error message "could not refer to file (-43)." Should this work for any file? What is the proper directory syntax to get this to work (/home...?)? Worse yet, I can't seem to pull up the manual for this, as man -k "GetFileInfo" yields "nothing appropriate." I know this is a very basic question, but could someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks very much!

First, are you sure you have developer tools installed? Are you sure developer tools are located at the root of your system volume? The correct path of this utility is /the_absolute_path_of_your_developer_tools/Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo with the correct attributes, -av in this case, and the correct file path of the file you wish to know if it is invisible.

To see manual pages of GetFileInfo, just type "man GetFileInfo" without -k option (and without quotes).

FJ

The

"could not refer to file (-43)"

Is GetFileInfo's 'friendly' way of saying "I couldn't find the thing you typed in the filesystem". That is, if you typed:

/Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo somedirectoryorfile

There was no directory or file named "somedirectoryorfile" in your current working directory. Make sure you type the file name exactly. You can use the normal unix shell tricks here if you like. For example:

/Developer/Tools/GetFileInfo ~

will return the HFS file information for your home directory.