[X-Unix] Was Folder, Became Application

[Stroller]

Hi John,

This list is for using the COMMAND LINE on OS X. The Finder is a  
graphical application, so it's not strictly relevant to this list.

Having said that, I think you can fix your Finder / iTunes problem,  
using the command line.

For instance, when I said:

   Open Terminal and type `ls ` (with the space, no quotes) and drag
   and drop [this messed up folder] on to it. Press enter. What does
   it say? Paste the results back to us.

I wasn't just saying that for my own entertainment.

When I say:

   So you can probably `cp -rvf ` this folder somewhere and then `mv
   foldername.app folder`.

I don't mean "copy it with the Finder", I mean "type some commands  
into the Terminal window". I didn't specify which ones at this stage,  
because first you'd need to get back to use with the results I  
already asked for.

If you're confused by what I mean by "the Terminal" then you can find  
this program in Application > Utilities.

I think your problem can be fixed in under a minute using the command  
line. I could be wrong in that, but I have no idea until you give  
more information. But you might want to delay trying to doing so for  
an hour or two, and work your way through these tutorials first:
<http://www.mcelhearn.com/article.php?story=200409211327301>

Those tutorials should give you an idea of what I'm talking about  
when I use words like `ls` and `cp`, and my words:

   Open Terminal and type `ls ` (with the space, no quotes) and drag
   and drop [this messed up folder] on to it. Press enter. What does
   it say? Paste the results back to us.

should then make sense to you.

When you come back to us, you need to post back something that looks  
vaguely like this:

   Stroller's Mac ~ $ ls
   Desktop         Library         Music           Public          foo
   Documents       Movies          Pictures        Sites            
foo.txt
   Stroller's Mac ~ $ ls -l Music/
   total 0
   drwxr-xr-x   9 stroller  stroller  306 Dec 29 08:18 Music Videos
   drwxr-xr-x   8 stroller  stroller  272 May 25 03:02 iTunes
   Stroller's Mac ~ $ ls -l Music/iTunes/
   total 22656
   drwxr-xr-x     3 stroller  stroller      102 Sep 30  2006 Album  
Artwork
   drwxr-xr-x     6 stroller  stroller      204 Jan 18 12:13 Previous  
iTunes Libraries
   -rw-r--r--     1 stroller  stroller  6198712 May 25 03:02 iTunes  
Library
   drwxr-xr-x   327 stroller  stroller    11118 Mar 30 13:04 iTunes  
Music
   -rw-r--r--     1 stroller  stroller  5396002 May 25 03:02 iTunes  
Music Library.xml
   Stroller's Mac ~ $

Posting back output from the terminal is standard operational  
procedure when asking for help on Unix-orientated mailing lists. It  
helps us understand FAR better than your description what is going on  
and what you're doing. You need to include the command you used, as  
well as the output - as I've copied from `ls -l Music/iTunes/` above,  
all through the output that that command returns, and then the next  
prompt ("Stroller's Mac ~ $"). This is "one standard unit" of the  
command-line copy-and-paste that you should be providing.

Cheers,

Stroller.



On 27 May 2008, at 19:30, Jon Warms wrote:

> Stroller-
>
> Thank you. I think I misstated the problem. I can change the
> "application" back to a file, just by removing the extension.
> But I can't open it. IOW, I can't restore the hierarchical folder
> structure.
>
> For example, I copied the large file as you suggested, and
> got another equally sized file. But when I tried to cd to the
> new file, I got "Not a directory." That's what my problem is.
>
> And, of course, when I try to open the large file, Finder asks
> me to choose an application. As I said in my first posting, I
> can open the file in an editor (I used ed) and see the 30+
> megabytes, but I don't know how to make sense of it.
>
> I'm assuming the original folder structure is intact, but some
> header data has been changed. The size of the large file is about
> the same as my original iTunes Library was. (I didn't track
> the exact size.)
>
> I just was hoping there was some header data I could remove that
> would make the original folder structure reappear. Way back
> when OS X disposed of the resource forks, maybe there was
> something inserted in the header of an application file
> to replace it.
>
> Wishful thinking?
>
> Jon
>