Re: Parsing com.apple.sidebar.plist alias data. Can Mac::Files

>Hi,
>
>I've written some code to handle relocating of user home folders, in 
>particular, the rewriting of full paths in preference files. For the 
>majority of applications, this all works sweetly with Foundation.pm 
>and the usual NSDictionary calls.
>
>However I am running into issues with the Finder sidebar. The 
>"useritems" in the sidebar plist are based on "aliases" - with no 
>POSIX file paths at all (like Dock has).
>
>I gather this is all Carbon magic, and I have been wandering round 
>the Macperl docs without much success. I'm guessing that Mac::Files 
>might be the right area.
>
>Does anyone know what calls I could use to parse and edit the alias 
>data (which I currently have extracted into temp files)?

Years ago I hacked together a Carbon/Foundation c thingy that figures 
out alias data.

http://firebolt.scl.utah.edu/public/dockit/dockit.c

It creates the plist info that goes in the dock prefs.  The alias 
data is part of the output.  You could hack the code so that it only 
prints alias data, or parse the output.  I keep wanting to make it 
more useful but I hate c.  I would love to be able to do this in Perl 
exclusively.

I have no idea if using an external utility like this will work for 
you.  Let me know either way.

James