find file type/creator

[steve harley]

on 2 Mar 2004, at 8:10 PM, William H. Magill wrote:
> On 02 Mar, 2004, at 16:01, MacX wrote:
>> I remember is some version of the Mac OS I could drag-and-drop files 
>> on the
>> find file dialog in the Finder and the file type or creator would fill
>> itself into the appropriate field.
>>
>> Anyone know how to do this in OS X?

Finder's find feature no longer accepts file drags for metadata 
values.. if you know the codes you can still type them in.. if you need 
to find a file's code, many utilities are available.. in the shell use

   GetFileInfo -c <path to file>

or in AppleScript

   tell application "Finder" to display dialog file creator of (info for 
(choose file))

> In general, in OS X the auto launch functionality is defined by the 
> file name extension.

that's not correct.. application binding is defined by unique 
combinations of creator code, filename extension, and type code.. 
there's also room for MIME type.. see com.apple.LaunchServices.plist 
for examples of these combinations in action.. for example i have 
separate entries for

C:CARO;E:pdf, C:CARO;T:PDF, E:pdf and T:PDF

> To set the application used to open that file type, do a "get info" on 
> the file.
> There is a "open with" option where you can select an application 
> program to use for that particular file...

which uses the resource fork to store the file-specific binding 
information

> or you can "change all" files that are similar to use the same app.

which will change the application binding *only* for files with the 
same combination of creator, extension & type