Editing Fork (file system) (section)

==Alternatives==
On file systems without forks, one may instead use multiple separate files that are associated with each other, particularly [[sidecar file]]s for metadata. However, the connection between these files is not automatically preserved by the file system, and must instead be handled by each program that works on files. Another alternative is a [[Digital container format|container file]], which stores additional data within a given file format, or an [[archive file]], which allows storing several files and metadata within a file (within a single fork). This requires that programs process the container file or archive file, rather than the file system handling forks. These alternatives require additional work by programs using the data, but benefit from portability to file systems that do not support forks.