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http://www.macnn.com/articles/01/11/24/reader:.discrepancy/

Reader: discrepancy by troubleshooting apps

updated 10:50 pm EST, Sat November 24, 2001

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Eric Woehler writes about an interesting discrepancy reported by various troubleshooting applications:

"Curious that the number of files reported on my mac varies with each application. I have a dual USB iBook, 256 MB, 10Gb, running OS 9.2.1 & OS X (10.0.4 at present). The Finder tells me there are 36340 files on my drive, File Buddy 6 says 30372, Norton Speed Disk 30195, Alsoft's Disk Warrior 72 734 (!) and Tattle Tech sees 30349 files. Would love to have someone explain just why these discrepancies in file counts exist and why the discrepancies are so large!"

by MacNN Staff

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11/24, 11:05pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
One possibility...

Directories in UNIX are really a special type of file (a catalog of its contents). One program may be counting these as files and the other may not.

- Ross

oswegozealot

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11/24, 11:09pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Invisibles?

Could also have something to do with counting invisible files...some may count 'em, some may not, and some may not find all of them. Interesting, though.

-Mike

\0

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11/24, 11:44pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
it

could also be the corrupt file marker that OSX puts on all files related to OS 9 by default.

\0

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11/25, 12:35am | report spam | close Reply | delete
All

Your Files Are Belong To Us!

\0

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11/25, 03:21am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Boy...

slow news day, eh?

nuckin futs
Forum Regular

Joined: Dec 2000

0

11/25, 08:26am | report spam | close Reply |
whichever app...

gets it right will get my money. I have a feeling Disk Warrior might be the right one. The last time I ran a virus checker, it was scanning close to 65,000 files.

gorkhali
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2001

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11/25, 09:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Use find

Now that you have UNIX..why don't you use it to count the files?

find / -print | wc -l

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11/25, 11:11am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Finder inaccurate

I don't trust the finder. It also gives very inaccurate file sizes when the files are very small (eg. 6 KB -- 136 KB in the Finder.)

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11/25, 11:57am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Aliases

My guess is that the different kind of Mac aliases and Unix links are throwing the different programs off too.

chaos-ad
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Joined: Oct 2001

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11/25, 12:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
Not inaccurate

The finder is not inaccurate - it is showing you the file as the smallest disk block size that your formatted drive will support. Larger disks tend to have larger block sizes. (hence a small file will still take more space because of the larger block size)

This is why the Finder shows two numbers. Actual file size, and block size usage. This is why some people will take the time to partition a very large disk -- smaller block size=less usage for small files.

Of course, with HFS+, the block size should be smaller anyway.

\0

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11/25, 12:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Doesn't this...

belong in the support/general discussion forums? I would expect to see this in MacFixIt, but not the main page of MacNN. Oh well! About as relevant as this post, I suppose. :)

mkone
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Joined: Sep 2001

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11/25, 12:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
does it really matter

this post seems pointless . what does it matter how many files you have , so you have a lot of files .that is what these apps should say

Nitride
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Joined: Sep 2001

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11/25, 01:41pm | report spam | close Reply |
The point is...

The point is that these professional-level commercial apps seems to work in substantially different ways and this person does not trust any of them.

If there is a problem which app would you trust with your data? What if you are writing your Doctorial thesis and have hundreds or thousands of pieces of reference/research material and hit a snag?

The most accurate and powerful should win, but how can you tell with wildly different results, is the point ultimately.

Mac OS X further complicates things by bringing actual UNIX on board instead of a UNIX-like OS that does not have two faces (one the everything-is-a-file world of UNIX vs. modern congealed software/data files neatly segregated and labeled).

OS X has many advantages but it really screws up your nice neat Mac computer with its thousands of little hidden bits that utilities must now deal with.

I am glad I don't work for Alsoft or Symantec, geeze.

Pascal Lessard
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11/25, 03:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Result

Typing :

sudo -u root find / -print | wc -l

On my Mac gives allowed me to find that I have 63648 files.

Of course, I will sleep well tonight, as well as I would have hadn't I known this tidbit. ;-)

The sentence : "Mac OS X further complicates things by bringing actual UNIX on board instead of a UNIX-like OS that does not have two faces (one the everything-is-a-file world of UNIX vs. modern congealed software/data files neatly segregated and labeled)." has won the Oscar for the Most Stupid Statement Of The Day. My dear Oscar winner (whiner ?) : please keep using Mac OS 9. I don't care you don't like Mac OS X. You are afraid of progress, that's all.

Clive
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Jan 2001

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11/25, 04:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
The reason...

It's because some apps are counting files in different ways, probably due to the different ways they look at files and applications in X.

Whereas, prior to 9.0, all apps were one one single file (perhaps with related extensions) apps after 9.0 or in X can be "packages". A package is a special kind of folder which acts just like a double clickable app, but inside it may have hundreds of separate files. Older apps don't understand the "package" and see it as a folder, and can access it's internal files.

Potatoswatter
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Joined: Dec 1999

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11/25, 05:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
big number

in DiskWarrior might be counting the number of file forks on the disk. And how do all these programs count packages? I'll bet the others are counting directories vs. files. Careful about the semantic difference between "files" and "items".

Potatoswatter
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Joined: Dec 1999

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11/25, 05:57pm | report spam | close Reply |
big number

in DiskWarrior might be counting the number of file forks on the disk. And how do all these programs count packages? I'll bet the others are counting directories vs. files. Careful about the semantic difference between "files" and "items".

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11/25, 06:35pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Also...

What about OS X packages? They contain multiple files. Some apps may identify them as folders instead of what they really are.

\0

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11/25, 07:11pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
weaklings!

I did the
"sudo find / -print | wc -l" command (sudo added, so I can traverse the entire filestructure w/out problems with permissions) and I got a whopping 258,494 files!

\0

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11/25, 07:40pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE: Doctorial Thesis

There is no such thing - it is a DOCTORAL Thesis. Unless it is a paper on Nucular radiation or plant foilage.

Arcady
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Joined: May 2001

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11/26, 01:16am | report spam | close Reply |
The Number of Files

The only time that the number of files you have matters: when you are running Retrospect to back them up or restore them. Otherwise, who cares?

Disk recovery programs are nice to have, but should be used as a last resort when a backup fails or has not been run since the file was lost.

asterizk
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2001

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11/26, 01:24am | report spam | close Reply |
sudo find...

About finding 258494 files using "sudo find / -print | wc -l": that count includes all your folders. I looked for a way to exclude them in the find manpage, but I didn't see an easy way.

Using the "find" command with the "type -f" flag set ("f" stands for "file" -- eg: "sudo find / -print -type f | wc -l") didn't seem to have the desired effect: it _increased_ the number of files reported. Hmm.

Krishen

RCK

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11/26, 08:20am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Time?

Slow news day? Who has time to run all of those apps?

RCK

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11/26, 08:22am | report spam | close Reply | delete
11

My files go to 11

ajk_qwerty
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2001

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11/26, 08:57am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: sudo find...

You need to switch the order of the find options. The -type needs to come before the -print as in "sudo find / -type f -print | wc -l".

Andy.

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Reader: discrepancy by troubleshooting apps

updated 10:50 pm EST, Sat November 24, 2001

One possibility...

Invisibles?

it

All

Boy...

whichever app...

Use find

Finder inaccurate

Aliases

Not inaccurate

Doesn't this...

does it really matter

The point is...

Result

The reason...

big number

big number

Also...

weaklings!

RE: Doctorial Thesis

The Number of Files

sudo find...

Time?

11

Re: sudo find...

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Reader: discrepancy by troubleshooting apps

updated 10:50 pm EST, Sat November 24, 2001

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One possibility...

Invisibles?

it

All

Boy...

whichever app...

Use find

Finder inaccurate

Aliases

Not inaccurate

Doesn't this...

does it really matter

The point is...

Result

The reason...

big number

big number

Also...

weaklings!

RE: Doctorial Thesis

The Number of Files

sudo find...

Time?

11

Re: sudo find...

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