Python: Check if a directory is an alias - macos

Does python have a simple function for checking if a directory is an actual directory or if it's just an alias to another directory? I'm trying to list all files/folders in a directory but because of these alias folders, I'm getting a lost of stuff that looks like this:
/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle/Home/bundle
I know I can write a function that will compare paths and quit if it seems like I'm going in circles, but is there a simple function that does exactly that that I'm not aware of?
E.g.
os.isAlias( …pathname… )
Thanks!

Here's a version of os.path.realpath that works on Mac aliases as well as on symbolic links under Python 2:
from Carbon import File
def osx_realpath (path):
return File.FSResolveAliasFile(path, True)[0].as_pathname()
If you call osx_realpath on each directory before you recurse into it you should avoid duplication. Alternatively you could define something like
def is_osx_realpath (path):
return path == osx_realpath(path)
Here you have to worry a little about false negatives, however. If you filter for is_osx_realpath and the path you start with is an alias, your program will stop without looking at anything.
So far I don't know of a way to do this under Python 3. I have a question here where I'm hoping for an answer. Right now I can't do better than using subprocess.call to invoke something that does the check on the command line.
EDIT: I should add that not only is Carbon.File not available in Python 3, but it is deprecated and so is best avoided in Python 2 as well--however it's the most pragmatic solution I know of for Python 2 at present.
EDIT 2: here is a way to check if a file is an alias that I believe to be Python 3-friendly. However, I don't have code to resolve the alias. I believe you need PyObjC installed.
from AppKit import NSWorkspace
def is_alias (path):
uti, err = NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace().typeOfFile_error_(
os.path.realpath(path), None)
if err:
raise Exception(unicode(err))
else:
return "com.apple.alias-file" == uti
(source)

The answer above is incorrect.
While it is true that Finder reports symlinks as alias, they are distinct things.
Symlinks are a basic feature of UNIX, but alias are a Apple only feature.
If you doubt this create a symlink to a directory and an alias. The symlink will be small typically 50-100 bytes, whereas the alias can be several MB.
os.path.islink( … ) will report symlinks, but not alias.
I am not sure how you would find them in Python, but the following link shows other methods.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/21151368/838253

You can check whether a file or directory is an alias with the GetFileInfo command in Mac OS X. GetFileInfo -aa foo prints a line with "1" if foo is an alias and "0" if not.
import subprocess
def is_alias(path):
return subprocess.check_output(["GetFileInfo", "-aa", path]) == "1\n"
Seems a little sad to spawn a process for every check, but I think this works with versions of Mac OS X since probably 10.4.4 (2006), 32-bit, 64-bit, Python 2 and Python 3. The version of GetFileInfo I have (from 2009) is a "universal" i386 + PPC binary.
GetFileInfo is part of Xcode, which is large, but you can download the command-line tools separately (see the "Separate Download" section here).
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/GetFileInfo.1.html

Old question, but I just ran into this myself.
I have no perfect method for checking if the file is an alias, however, if using mimetypes, python will return None for an alias or a symlink. Might be useful in some situations. I've only tested this in python 3.8 on macOS Big Sur.
import mimetypes
for idx, f in enumerate(filepaths):
type = mimetypes.guess_type(f)[0]
print(f"type is: {type}")
returns (without my added comments):
type is: None # <-- Folder Alias
type is: None # <-- File Alias
type is: text/x-python
type is: None # <-- Folder Alias
type is: video/mp4
type is: image/png
type is: None # <-- Folder Alias
type is: None # <-- Symlink
type is: image/png
type is: application/zip
type is: image/png
type is: image/jpeg
type is: None # <-- Symlink
I ran some files through exiftool just to see what types they returned, and aliases and symlinks both showed the following:
File Type : ALIAS
File Type Extension : alias
MIME Type : application/x-macos
You might be able to init the mimetypes for these, but haven't tested and not sure if it will give false positives if anything else shows up as application/x-macos

Related

Is there a way to change the working directory of fiddle?

I'm trying to load a C shared library within Ruby using Fiddle.
Here is a minimal example:
require 'fiddle'
require 'fiddle/import'
module Era
extend Fiddle::Importer
dlload './ServerApi.so'
extern 'int era_init_lib()'
extern 'void era_deinit_lib()'
extern 'int era_process_request(const char* request, char** response)'
extern 'void era_free(char* response)'
end
Era.era_init_lib
begin
# ...
ensure
Era.era_deinit_lib
end
The shared library loads without issues. However when I call Era.era_init_lib it tries to load additional libraries (Network.so and Protobuf.so). I have these file located in the current working directory (in the same directory as ServerApi.so).
However when I try to execute the code above I receive the following error:
! Failed to load library: /home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.5/bin/Network.so, error: /home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.5/bin/Network.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
If I place the file at the location the error describes everything works fine.
My guess is that the C working directory of fiddle is different from the Ruby working directory. I would like to keep the project files within the project and not in the Ruby installation directory.
How can I use Network.so from my project folder?
All the *.so files are provided by a third-party. I do not have the source and as a result cannot change these files. The function signatures are provided by the documentation.
Searching for Network.so in the strace gives me these results:
readlink("/proc/self/exe", "/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2."..., 4096) = 44
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.5/bin/Network.so", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
futex(0x7fcc16666d90, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
futex(0x7fcc16b44520, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 2147483647) = 0
write(2, "! Failed to load library: ", 26! Failed to load library: ) = 26
write(2, "/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2."..., 50/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.5/bin/Network.so) = 50
write(2, ", error: ", 9, error: ) = 9
write(2, "/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2."..., 109/home/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.6.5/bin/Network.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory) = 109
write(2, "\n", 1) = 1
I've also written a C script which does the same thing which works perfectly fine when the files are dropped into the same directory. So it might be the fault of the library, which I assume checks the location of the current running program, then tries to load the library from that folder. This would explain the behavior when ran as a Ruby script (since it runs as part of the Ruby program), whereas a C binary runs standalone.
For those that want to re-create the (Linux) issue. You can download the necessary files from here. Which gives you the server-linux-x86_64.sh file.
Supported distros are: Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat and CentOS but others may also work fine.
You can either run the installer, which should place the files in /opt/eset/RemoteAdministrator/Server. Or, assuming most of you don't want to install the full application you can run the following command:
sed '1,/^# Start of TAR\.GZ file #$/d' server-linux-x86_64.sh | sed '1d' > server-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
Which removes all the installer instructions from the .sh file and only leaves the binary .tar.gz data, writing it to server-linux-x86_64.tar.gz.
Copy the files ServerApi.so, Protobuf.so and Network.so into a directory of your liking. Create a Ruby script (with the question code) in the same directory and run the script.
Because ServerApi.so checks /proc/self/exe for the location of all subsequent files to load, and it is very difficult to modify this target by normal means, it is easier to just modify ServerApi.so itself so that it uses something else besides proc for the source.
If we run strings ServerApi.so, we can verify that the location to check is stored inside a string in ServerApi.so:
strings ServerApi.so | grep 'proc/self/exe'
B/proc/self/exe
So now all we need to do is modify this string to something else that works for us.
The easiest way to modify the string is to replace it with something that is exactly the same length as the original. This way we do not have to worry about changing the end-of-string zero padding or accidentally changing the total size of ServerApi.so.
Here we can see a suitable candidate could be /tmp/scriptexe:
/proc/self/exe
/tmp/scriptexe <- same length
So let's do that:
sed -e 's/proc\/self\/exe/tmp\/scriptexe/' ServerApi.so > ServerApi_Mod.so
Now we can verify the change:
strings ServerApi_Mod.so | grep scriptexe
B/tmp/scriptexe
Next we need to create /tmp/scriptexe to actually point to our Ruby script:
ln -s /the/full/path/to/our/ruby/script.rb /tmp/scriptexe
Then we modify our script:
dlload './ServerApi_Mod.so
Now we can run it as normal:
ruby script.rb
And everything should work.
If we read the strace output we see that the library obtains the current executable location from /proc/self/exe, and then searches subsequent libraries from there.
/proc/self/exe is not easily modifiable, but by using a hard link to a Ruby executable in the current directory we can trick it to point to a new folder.
Problem is making a hard link requires root.
In any case, here is a self-contained solution (note that it will ask for root password the first time you run it, in order to create the hard link).
Put this at the top of your script:
# Obtain path to current executable
exe = File.readlink("/proc/self/exe")
# Check if we are running the hard-liked version
if !exe.match /localruby/
if !File.exist?('localruby')
# Create a hard link to the current Ruby exe using sudo
system("sudo ln #{exe} localruby")
end
puts "Restarting..."
# In order to prevent infinite busy loop in case of some mishap
sleep 1
# Rerun self using the hard-linked Ruby executable.
# This will make /proc/self/exe point to the hard-link, which then
# allows the ESET library to search for .so files in current folder.
exec('./localruby', File.expand_path(__FILE__))
end
require 'fiddle'
require 'fiddle/import'
# ...rest of your script goes here...
A simple solution without any extra Ruby code is to just create the hard link manually, and then always run the script with ./localruby myscript.rb, instead of using the normal ruby myscript.rb.

Why do I get 'Can't locate object method "init" via package "wlgmod::odt"' when I try to run wyd.pl in Cygwin?

I'm trying to run a Perl script called WyD using Cygwin on Windows. Cygwin is installed at C:\cygwin64, and WyD is installed at C:\wyd\wyd.pl. Both are in the Windows PATH environment variable as C:\cygwin64 and C:\wyd respectively.
When running WyD with bash/Mintty using:
wyd.pl -b -e -t -s 3 -o "OUTPUTTEDWORDLIST" "TARGETFOLDER"
...I get the following error:
Can't locate object method "init" via package "wlgmod::odt" (perhaps
you forgot to load "wlgmod::odt"?) at /cygdrive/c/WYD/wyd.pl line 284.
Sometimes wlgmod::odt is replaced with wlgmod::doc or any other document type, but running the script always generates that same basic error. A previous answer to this question recommended installing several dependencies, which turned out to be a mere copy-paste of an answer for Ubuntu systems, and didn't solve the error, so I've decided to start at the beginning and re-ask the question with more details. I also have all Perl packages in the Cygwin installer installed.
After everything I've tried and done to get this script working, I can personally think of two possible causes for the error. Think of these as a guide more than anything else.
The error above references line 284 in the wyd.pl script, so it's possible that something in that script is hardcoded so that it doesn't work with Cygwin/Windows, or just generally has a compatibility bug. I don't understand Perl, so I can't confirm this.
I notice that the installation of WyD at C:\wyd contains a folder called wlgmod, and that folder contains all the files that the above error seems to be looking for; doc.pm, html.pm, jpeg.pm, etc. If those files exist in that directory but bash is unable to find them, maybe it's due to the fact WyD needs to be run from within Cygwin itself. I've only recently thought about this possibility, and my knowledge of both Cygwin and WyD is too sparse to definitively know how both work. Is it even possible to run WyD from within the Cygwin folder? It's not a package so can't be installed as one, and therefore I'm not sure how that would work.
Here are the relevant sections of the script:
# Module hash containing module name and supported file extensions
# Multiple extensions are seperated using ';'
my %wlgmods = (
'wlgmod::strings', '', # only used with command-line switch
'wlgmod::plain' , '.txt', # used for all MIME text/plain as well
'wlgmod::html' , '.html;.htm;.php;.php3;.php4',
'wlgmod::doc' , '.doc',
'wlgmod::pdf' , '.pdf',
'wlgmod::mp3' , '.mp3',
'wlgmod::ppt' , '.ppt',
'wlgmod::jpeg' , '.jpeg;.jpg;.JPG;.JPEG',
'wlgmod::odt' , '.odt;.ods;.odp'
);
...
# Initialize possible modules
foreach(keys %wlgmods) {
eval("use $_;");
my $ret = $_->init(); # line 284
# If module failed, add errortext and remove from hash
if($ret) {
$retvals .= "$_: $ret\n";
delete $wlgmods{$_};
$ret = "";
}
}

Can't use io.open in home directory - Lua

I'm writing a Mac OS program, and I have the following lines:
os.execute("cd ~/testdir")
configfile = io.open("configfile.cfg", "w")
configfile:write("hello")
configfile:close()
The problem is, it only creates the configfile in the scripts current directory instead of the folder I have just cd' into. I realised this is because I'm using a console command to change directory, then direct Lua code to write the file. To combat this I changed the code to this:
configfile = io.open("~/testdir/configfile.cfg", "w")
However I get the following result:
lua: ifontinst.lua:22: attempt to index global 'configfile' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
ifontinst.lua:22: in main chunk
My question is, what's the correct way to use IO.Open to create a file in a folder I have just created in the users home directory?
I appreciate I'm making a rookie mistake here, so I apologise if you waste your time on me.
You have problems with ~ symbol. In your os.execute("cd ~/testdir") is the shell who interprets the symbol and replaces it by your home path. However, in io.open("~/testdir/configfile.cfg", "w") is Lua who receives the string and Lua doesn't interprets this symbol, so your program tries to open a file in the incorrect folder. One simple solution is to call os.getenv("HOME") and concatenate the path string with your file path:
configfile = io.open(os.getenv("HOME").."/testdir/configfile.cfg", "w")
In order to improve error messages I suggests you to wrap io.open() using assert() function:
configfile = assert( io.open(os.getenv("HOME").."/testdir/configfile.cfg", "w") )

Why isn't my GNAT's standout file descriptor working?

As part of a little project, I'm writing a shell in Ada. As such, when I was investigating the system calls, I learned that there are three ways to do it.
The POSIX system calls, which are probably the least reliable.
Passing the arguments along to C's system(), which I didn't really want to do, since this was about writing the emulator in Ada and not C.
Using GNAT's runtime libraries.
I chose to go for the last option, considering this to be the most "Ada-like" of the choices. I found a code snippet on RosettaCode here. I copied and pasted it and compiled it after changing the "cmd.exe" to "ls" and removing the second argument definition. However, nothing happens when I run the executable. The shell just goes right back to the prompt. I have tested this on two different computers, one running Fedora 21, the other Debian Jessie. Here's what I've done to test it:
Seen if lacking an arguments string caused it
Checked if any of the file descriptors in GNAT's libraries are mis-named
Redirected both stderr and stdin to stdout just to see if GNAT was dumping them to the wrong FD anyway.
Looked thoroughly through the System.OS_lib library file, and there seems to be no reason.
Googled it, but GNAT's own page on the GCC website is very poorly documented.
For now I'm using the C.Interface system in the preparation of my shell, but I'm dissatisfied with this. I'm new to Ada and have only been tinkering with it for a month or so now, so if there's some kind of Ada wisdom here that would help I'm not in on it.
UPDATE: I have tried running it with absolute path, both to /usr/bin and /bin locations, and it doesn't work. Interestingly, the result code returned by the operating system is 1, but I don't know what that means. A quick search suggests that it's for "all general errors", and another site suggests that it's for "incorrect functions".
I had to tweak the RosettaCode example a little to run /bin/ls on Debian Linux, but it does run as expected...
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
with Gnat.OS_Lib; use Gnat.OS_Lib;
procedure Execute_Synchronously is
Result : Integer;
Arguments : Argument_List :=
( 1=> new String'("-al")
);
begin
Spawn
( Program_Name => "/bin/ls",
Args => Arguments,
Output_File_Descriptor => Standout,
Return_Code => Result
);
for Index in Arguments'Range loop
Free (Arguments (Index));
end loop;
end Execute_Synchronously;
Changes :
my Gnat (FSF Gnat 4.92 from Debian Jessie) warned about System.OS_Lib, recommending Gnat.OS_Lib instead. (Which simply renames System.OS_Lib .... why???
System.OS_Lib comments:
-- Note: this package is in the System hierarchy so that it can be directly
-- be used by other predefined packages. User access to this package is via
-- a renaming of this package in GNAT.OS_Lib (file g-os_lib.ads).
Program name including path.
Arguments. The first time I ran it, it displayed the details of "ls" itself, because it was given its own name as the first argument, so I deleted that to see the current directory instead.
Notes :
the best information ot the available subprograms and their arguments is usually in the package specs themselves in the "adainclude" folder : this is /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.9/adainclude on my Debian installation, locate system.ads will find yours. The specific files are: s-os_lib.ads for System.OS_Lib which exports Spawn and Standout, and a-textio.ads for Ada.Text_IO.
Standout is not the preferred way of accessing Standard Output : it's a file descriptor (integer), the preferred way would be the Standard_Output function from Ada.Text_IO which returns a File. However there doesn't seem to be an overload for Spawn which takes a File (nor would I expect one in this low level library) so the lower level file descriptor is used here.
Absent a shell, you'll need to search the PATH yourself or specify a full path for the desired executable:
Spawn (
Program_Name => "/bin/ls",
…
);
I have tried running it with absolute path…neither /usr/bin nor /bin locations work.
Use which to determine the full path to the executable:
$ which ls
/bin/ls

Python: Call a shell script which calls a bin. With arguments

The context: There is a map somewhere on the system with bin files which I'd like to call. They are not callable directly though, but through shell scripts which do all kinds of magic and then call the corresponding bin with: "$ENV_VAR/path/to/the/bin" "$#" (the software is non-free, that's probably why this construction is used)
The problem: Calling this from within Python. I tried to use:
from subprocess import call
call(["nameOfBin", "-input somefile"])
But this gave the error ERROR: nameOfBin - Illegal option: input somefile. This means the '-' sign in front of 'input' has disapeared along the way (putting more '-' signs in front doesn't help).
Possible solutions:
1: In some way preserving the '-' sign so the bin at the end actually takes '-input' as an option instead of 'input'.
2: Fix the magic in a dirty way (I will probably manage), and have a way to call a bin at a location defined by a $ENV_VAR (environment variable).
I searched for both methods, but appearantly nobody before me had such a problem (or I didn't see it: Sorry if that's the case).
Each item in the list should be a single argument. Replace "-input somefile" with "-input", "somefile":
from subprocess import call
rc = call(["nameOfBin", "-input", "somefile"])

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