Use Finder aliases at the command line, compare extended attributes of two files, and normalise Unicode strings.
aliases
A minor but worthwhile upgrade to this utility which provides bookmarks and aliases, reveals inode numbers, and much more.
How can the Open Recent menu offer to open a document that no longer exists when the volume it was on is no longer mounted?
So resolving an Alias doesn’t always update data in the Alias file, even though it returns the correct path when possible. This is becoming a mess.
Links – hard links, symlinks, and Finder Aliases – are the most complex and confusing of simple concepts in computing. Do they get any better after research?
It’s worth refreshing all your Finder Aliases before copying or cloning a volume to update their link info. Here’s a free tool to do that and more: Alifix.
It’s all too easy to change the information in a Finder Alias when you’re inspecting it. Here’s how to avoid that, and a new version of Precize to help.
Diagram summarising how Finder Aliases work, including their resolution. And how to confuse QuickLook thumbnails.
Finder Aliases can update their path information when they are resolved. Also some differences between Aliases and Bookmarks.
Do you use Finder Column views and make Aliases to folders? If one of those gets broken, then the Finder may hang on you.
The Eclectic Light Company 