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Alias (Mac OS)
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== Preventing alias failure == An alias is a dynamic reference to an object. The original may be moved to another place ''within the same filesystem'', without breaking the link. The [[operating system]] stores several pieces of information about the original in the [[resource fork]] of the alias file. Examples of the information used to locate the original are: * path * file ID (inode number) * directory ID (inode number) * name * file size Since any of these properties can change without the computer's knowledge, as a result of user activity, various search algorithms are used to find the most plausible target. This fault-tolerance sets the alias apart from similar functions in some other operating systems, such as the [[Unix]] [[symbolic link]] or the [[Microsoft Windows]] [[computer shortcut|shortcut]], at the expense of increased complexity and unpredictability. For example, an application can be moved from one directory to another within the same filesystem, but an existing alias would still launch the same application when double-clicked. The question can arise of how an alias should work if a file is moved, and then a file is created with the same name as the original moved file, since the alias can be used to locate both the original name and the new location of the original file. With symbolic links the reference is unambiguous (soft links refer to the new file, hard links to the original). Before Mac OS X 10.2, however, such an ambiguous alias would consistently find the original moved file, rather than the recreated file. In Mac OS X 10.2 and later releases, the new file is found, matching the behaviour of symbolic links [https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPFileSystem/Articles/Aliases.html]. macOS applications can programmatically use the old behavior if required. Aliases are similar in operation to [[shadow (OS/2)|shadow]]s in the graphical [[Workplace Shell]] of the [[OS/2]] operating system.
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