Why Aliases are in different sizes?

[Ajani]

Hello
Recently bought an Apple Core2Duo MAC Book Pro compatible with System 9 operating system for getting better Internet service, and found Aliases were a uniform size which range is from 40k to 500k Under OS X. There is nothing to do with the customized icons. For all my ilife applications I make a folder in the dock, there the range is 40K for Garageband to 348K for iWeb. At the same time all the Aliases are created but their sizes are different , it looks peculiar. Why are they different?

[Techno01]

In the resource part of the Alias file, the operating system(system 9) keeps several information’s about the original one. That is why it takes different spaces for keeping the information’s, and their sizes are different. The information’s which are kept for which is used to locate the original are:
1.Directory ID.
2.File size.
3.File ID.
4.Name of the file, and
5.Path of the file location.

[Techguru01]

With the custom icon the Alias has lots to do. The Alias files have a custom icon which shows the icon of the original in the resource fork. So, due to the subset of sizes can vary the original file icon size also it can vary for the nature of the image. That’s why corresponding file Alias of the file will also vary regarding this. The symbolic links finder with a kind of Alias, contains no data where they are attempting

[deveritt]

For investigating why the Aliases are in different size use the command line tool “DeRez”. Which supplies as a part of the Apple Developers tool, known as Xcode Tools(an optional install from the OS X install DVD). The tool command is used to extract commands from the resource fork to the specific file. I am giving you the procedure for getting the textual version of the data in the resource fork of the alias file:
DeRez "/Applications/iWeb.app alias" > foo.txt

[Gavinovo]

Slightly the same problem, when tried to creating to an Alias on an external Hard Disk. The size of the Alias changes repeatedly according to the machine where the external hard disk is plugged in. Have an old PPC Mac mini and a brand new MacBook Pro. And find that if I create an Alias in MAC Mini it takes 4 kb, where as in MAC Pro it takes 510 kb. Here Custom resources are not involved. Why it happens any idea?

[Broad-Man]

From the post’s on investigation about 'DeRez', it is clear that the size of the Alias varies for different size of the custom icons. By using finder’s “Gear” menu to “show package content” on iweb application and accessible into the contents or resources of the sub folder. I found there a "iWeb.icns" of size 348 KB but for “GarageBand” there is "GarageBandApp.icns" of size 268 KB. When I tried to make an Alias on “Garageband”, it shows of file size 216 KB. I don’t know why it is shows smaller, but it at least the right range

[Snake08]

I am giving you the, by which you could write a script to create custom icon Aliases, to check the size of the default custom icon size. This is a basic which explain how to create it on a untitled folder.Try to overcome from your problem it will really helps you,

% DeRez "untitled folder alias" > foo.txt
% edit foo.txt   # open foo.txt in TextWrangler and remove the "icns" entry
% Rez foo.txt -o foo.alias
% SetFile -a A foo.alias
% stat -f "%N %z" foo.alias/..namedfork/rsrc  # look at size of resource fork of foo.alias
foo.alias/..namedfork/rsrc 690
# compare to size of original alias:
% stat -f "%N %z" "untitled folder alias/..namedfork/rsrc"
untitled folder alias/..namedfork/rsrc 518685

[johnson22]

An ‘Alias’ file contains at least an ‘Alias’ record along with the icon with the pointer(which helps the user if if it not targeted correctly). Keep in mind that the “Alias” is point to some unmount volumes and the application of documents of an unmount application. The size of the Alias will vary sometimes depending on how the path is complex.

[Spyrus]

When you create an Alias, it seems that it occupies the original size of the existing icon folder. And sets the Alias with the size of the icon, and customize it. The size of the Alias will not be change if you make modification on the original size of the icon file. It indicates by a right arrow on the top of the original icon. And if the Alias will customize later than the original custom icon will change.