[Cuis-dev] FileEntry fileContents hangs on macOS Alias file

Wed Aug 13 15:27:12 PDT 2025

Hi Bernhard,

I really think the key here is that 'bad' is an alias and not a file. 
Cuis is trying to get you the contents of the file, not the contents of 
the alias. As I said in my previous message, when I tried with an alias 
I created, that points to a file that is really there on my system, I 
get what I expect: the alias behaves just like the original file.

Would you prefer to handle the alias in a non transparent way, giving 
different behavior than accessing the file that the alias points to? It 
seems Cuis can't currently do that.

BTW, if I try to read your 'bad', I get a "bad does not exist" message. 
This is consistent with trying to get the contents of the referenced 
(and missing!) file.

Cheers,

On 13/08/2025 5:09 PM, Bernhard Pieber via Cuis-dev wrote:
> Hi Juan,
>
> It gets even weirder. While binaryContents size for bad answers 0:
> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'good') binaryContents size.  1228 .
> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') binaryContents size. 0 .
>
> … fileSize answers 128:
> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'good') fileSize. 1228 .
> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') fileSize. 128 .
>
> In Squeak fileSize answers the correct size:
> ((FileDirectory forFileName: '/Users/bernhard/Entwicklung/Cuis/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles/alias_test/') entryAt: 'bad') fileSize. 1172
>
> The primitive in Cuis also answers the correct size:
> FileIOAccessor default primFixedNameLookupEntryIn: '/Users/bernhard/Entwicklung/Cuis/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles/alias_test/' asUtf8Bytes index: 1. #('bad' 3931592513 3931592513 false 1172) .
>
> However, FileIOAccessor>>#fileSize: does not use it.
>
> Cheers,
> Bernhard
>
>
>> Am 13.08.2025 um 21:22 schrieb Bernhard Pieber via Cuis-dev <cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st>:
>>
>> Hi Juan,
>>
>> Thanks for looking into this. This is really strange.
>>
>> I redownloaded the attachment alias_test.zip from my mail to Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles by dragging it in the Finder. I double-clicked it to decompress it to the folder alias_test.
>>
>> I get this:
>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'good') binaryContents size. 1228 .
>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') binaryContents size. 0 .
>>
>> … even though the file named bad has 1172 bytes:
>> bernhard at Mini64 Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles % ls -lT alias_test
>> total 16
>> -rw-r--r--@ 1 bernhard  staff  1172  2 Aug 13:01:53 2025 bad
>> -rw-r--r--@ 1 bernhard  staff  1228  2 Aug 12:42:50 2025 good
>>
>> Here is the hash:
>> bernhard at Mini64 Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles % md5 alias_test/bad
>> MD5 (alias_test/bad) = 0e43b79da6ba19d176a1f02e6147fb77
>>
>> bernhard at Mini64 Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev-UserFiles % hexdump -C alias_test/bad
>> 00000000  62 6f 6f 6b 00 00 00 00  6d 61 72 6b 00 00 00 00  |book....mark....|
>> 00000010  38 00 00 00 38 00 00 00  5c 04 00 00 00 00 04 10  |8...8...\.......|
>> 00000020  00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  9e b5 97 d0 13 1f c7 41  |...............A|
>> ...
>> 00000460  00 00 00 00 01 d0 00 00  38 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |........8.......|
>> 00000470  10 d0 00 00 04 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 17 f0 00 00  |................|
>> 00000480  f8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  22 f0 00 00 04 03 00 00  |........".......|
>> 00000490  00 00 00 00                                       |....|
>> 00000494
>>
>> I want to read those bytes in Cuis.
>>
>> What do you get if you do this?
>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') binaryContents size.
>>
>> Do you get a different hash?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Bernhard
>>
>>
>>> Am 13.08.2025 um 20:22 schrieb Juan Vuletich <juan at cuis.st>:
>>>
>>> Hi Bernhard,
>>>
>>> On 05/08/2025 6:15 PM, Bernhard Pieber via Cuis-dev wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I tripped over a macOS alias file which has only 1172 bytes but whose contents cannot be shown in a file list in the latest Cuis7.5-7384.image. The cursor turns into an hourglass and I need to interrupt Cuis with Cmd-Dot.
>>>>
>>>> I attached a zipped directory with the bad file and a good alias file to compare. To reproduce do:
>>>>
>>>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'good') fileContents size. 1222 .
>>>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') fileContents size. „hangs"
>>>>
>>>> Is this a bug or a feature?
>>>>
>>>> If I use binaryContents it does not hang but answers a size of 0 which also seems false to me as the file contains 1172 bytes. How can I get those into a ByteArray?
>>>>
>>>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'good') binaryContents size. 1228 .
>>>> (DirectoryEntry userBaseDirectory / 'alias_test' // 'bad') binaryContents size. 0.
>>>>
>>>> I could reproduce it on another Mac.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Bernhard
>>>
>>> I unzipped your file on my Mac and tried. If I open Mac Finder on the
>>> folder, and ask for 'Get Info' on them, I get:
>>>
>>> 'good'. Kind: Document. Size: 1228 bytes.
>>>
>>> 'bad'. Kind: Alias. Size: 1172 btytes. Original:
>>> /Users/bernhard/Dropbox/......./....rtfd
>>>
>>> So, the 'good' is a regular file, not an alias. 'bad' is an alias, and
>>> the original file is not available in my system (making it a broken alias).
>>>
>>> I don't see any crash, but trying to open 'bad'(with #fileContents or
>>> #binaryContents) results in a "bad does not exist" message. If I create
>>> an alias to a file that does exist, I get the contents of the file, even
>>> when if I open Terminal and do `more aliasAjuan1.txt` I get the binary
>>> encoding of the alias, and not the contents of the referenced file
>>> ('juan1.txt').
>>>
>>> So, if there is a problem in your system, I could not reproduce it. What
>>> I see looks quite reasonable for me.
>>>
>>> HTH,
>>>
>>> --
>>> Juan Vuletich
>>> www.cuis.st
>>> github.com/jvuletich
>>> researchgate.net/profile/Juan-Vuletich
>>> independent.academia.edu/JuanVuletich
>>> patents.justia.com/inventor/juan-manuel-vuletich
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Cuis-dev mailing list
>> Cuis-dev at lists.cuis.st
>> https://lists.cuis.st/mailman/listinfo/cuis-dev
>
-- 
Juan Vuletich
www.cuis.st
github.com/jvuletich
researchgate.net/profile/Juan-Vuletich
independent.academia.edu/JuanVuletich
patents.justia.com/inventor/juan-manuel-vuletich