mdls incorrectly reports "could not find xxxx" when "Permission denied"

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Level 1

28 points

mdls incorrectly reports "could not find xxxx" when "Permission denied"

mdls incorrectly reports "could not find xxxx" when "Permission denied" should be reported.

see example:

/Users/dgerman > ls -ld Pic*
drwx------+ 304 dgerman admin 10336 Apr 24 19:55 Pictureso
drwx------ 5 root admin 170 May 4 21:43 Picturesrut

Users/dgerman > mdls -name kMDItemKind Pic*
kMDItemKind = "Folder"
mdls: could not find Picturesrut.

/Users/dgerman > sudo mdls -name kMDItemFSName Pic*
kMDItemFSName = "Pictureso"
kMDItemFSName = "Picturesrut"

Ibook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 7, 2009 9:37 AM

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Answer 1

nerowolfe

Level 6

13,090 points

May 7, 2009 1:19 PM in response to dgerman

dgerman wrote:
mdls incorrectly reports "could not find xxxx" when "Permission denied" should be reported.

No, this is normal terminal behavior. If the permissions do not allow the file to be read, then it reports as not being found since it cannot see it. It's part of the security.
Similarly some commands when run as a normal user will return "command not found" but when run as sudo it runs fine.

You would do better posting in the Unix forum here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9325732&#9325732
for a more detailed explanation of how these things work.

Message was edited by: nerowolfe

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Answer 2

dgerman Author

Level 1

28 points

May 7, 2009 12:56 PM in response to sig

mdls is one of the set of utilites used to access the metadata used by spotlight and mozy backup.

examples of available metadata items include:

kMDItemContentType, kMDItemKind,
photos kMDItemExposureTimeSeconds, ...Aperture, ...FNumber, ...ISOSpeed,
...FocalLength,...ISOSpeed etc

Very terse descriptions from man pages can be found at:
http://real-world-systems.com/docs/mdfind.1.html

Official documentation is at:
http://developer.apple.com/reference/Carbon/idxFileManagement-date.html#//apple_ ref/doc/uid/TP30001281-TP30000420-TP30000448

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Answer 3

dgerman Author

Level 1

28 points

May 7, 2009 3:50 PM in response to nerowolfe

Thank you for you response and suggestion re unix forum.

PS

/Users/dgerman > ls -l Pi*
Pictureso:
total 956980
drwxr-x--- 7 dgerman admin 238 Apr 24 18:59 090118BCG

Picturesrut:
ls: Picturesrut: Permission denied
/Users/dgerman >

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Answer 4

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

May 7, 2009 10:26 AM in response to dgerman

I give up. What are you doing? What is mdls?

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Answer 5

dgerman Author

Level 1

28 points

May 7, 2009 3:55 PM in response to dgerman

refered to unix

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