Re: Accesing file pointer of a burn folder file

On Dec 23, 2009, at 2:00 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> 
> From: Akash Nemani <[email protected]>
> Date: December 22, 2009 11:24:50 PM CST
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Accesing file pointer of a burn folder file
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I am trying to create a virtual folder in Mac. What I am hoping to do is
> that every file/folder dragged or copied into the virtual folder creates a
> symbolic link or a fake file/folder pointing to the original file/folder
> copied. I noticed that Burn folders does almost the same thing. But the
> problem I am facing is that when I try to access the files of the burn
> folder I cant get the file they are pointing to. I tried using stat as well
> as readlink but it doesn't seem to work for burn folders. Is there a way to
> solve this?
> 
> Or do you guys have any idea of a better way to implement what I am working
> on?
> 
> Regards,
> Akash Nemani
> Computer Engineering
> School of Computing
> National University of Singapore

Hmm... that's an interesting situation.
You may be running into the thing Apple managed to leverage which was also an old computer science no no... directory hardlinks!
Time Machine uses directory hardlinks extensively.
AFAIK the API for directory hardlinks is unpublished/private.