[Weather] odd directory/folder

[Tim Bitson]

Dan,

The odd _MACOSX directory is fairly common to  Window user who unzip Mac files. Since a Mac file has two parts (a data "fork" and a resource fork) and Windows files don't, the resource fork gets put in the _MACOSX directory and has the same name as the data file. Some Mac applications store file resources in the resource fork and some don't. i.e. a plain text file will have all the data in the data fork and a zero-length resource fork.

Since I'm not familiar with unzipping a file using Terminal, I suspect that the the unzip app you used wasn't configured for Mac-style files. Did you try just a plain old double-click to unzip the files? This should launch Apple's unarchive tool with the proper settings. If not, you can download the free application Stuffit Expander (http://www.stuffit.com/mac/expander/) to unzip the files. You'll need to do this for the MacUsers.zip file since the tools in this archive use the resource fork. For the other files, you can safely throw away the _MACOSX folder.

Tim
http://www.weathertoys.net

   
On Wednesday, April 25, 2007, at 07:12AM, "M. Daniel Becque" <mdbecque at gmail.com> wrote:
>I'm just getting started. Downloaded weathertoys.zip this morning and
>unzipped it from the Terminal in OSX. I then unzipped the Macusers, Source,
>Bonus Code and Tools files. When the macusers.zip was unzipped it created
>the MacUsers directory/folder but also one called __MACOSX. It has a
>macusers subdirectory in it. I browsed ahead in the book and don't see it
>mentioned. What did I do wrong?
>
>thanks in advance.
>-- 
>dan
>