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The Finder and Bundles

When you create a bundle, the build system can set a Finder attribute called a “bundle bit” in the bundle folder. Before the Mac OS X Finder displays a bundle in one of its windows, it reads this attribute. If the bundle bit is turned on, the bundle appears as a file package. A file package is a folder that the Finder presents to users as if it were a file (see Figure 4-1). In other words, the Finder hides the contents of the folder from users. This opacity discourages users from inadvertently (or intentionally) altering the contents of the bundle.

Figure 4-1 The Finder’s bundle bit

Some bundles might not have the bundle bit set; this is the case with Apple-provided bundles. Yet the Finder can still handle them appropriately. As explained in the next section (“Types of Bundles”), bundle folders should have extensions indicating their type—.app, .framework, .bundle, and so on. When the Finder encounters one of these folder extensions and determines that the folder is indeed a bundle, it does the proper things:

• Except for frameworks, it displays the bundle as a file package.

  Frameworks are displayed as folders so that you can browse their header files.



• If the bundle is an application (also known as an application package), Finder hides the .app extension.


• It extracts or computes the runtime information it needs from the bundle (type and creator codes, for instance) and updates its databases with it.

For more information on the Finder and how it handles bundles and documents, see the chapter “The Finder”.

Last updated: 2003-08-21

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