How to get file metadata?
How to get extensive filesystem information about a file?
I have a file that consistently causes errors in my backup utility (Unison). I'm trying to narrow down a bug and find out how it is different from other files. I copied that file and a copy backups fine so bug is not related to file contents. Then I renamed original to make sure a bug is not related to a filename.
So now I have 2 files with exact same contents, same xattrs (I checked) but one of them causes backup to fail. What else could be different between those files?
Also it is not a single case. I have many similar problem files all of which are created by the same program (DaVinci Resolve)
update: I found out that while files show the exact same size in ls -l
the problem file has larger size in Finder 'Get Info' dialog. So there is some king of metadata attached to that file. How to view it?
update2: I tried to use mdls
and ls -l@
as advised but didn't get an answer. It just shows that file sizes are different but didn't show why. Here is some additional info:
Romans-MacBook-Pro:cut poma$ mdls src.mov
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2015-01-19 06:12:45 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2015-01-05 04:54:25 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "src.mov"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 290301124
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 99
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 99
kMDItemFSSize = 290301124
kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""
Romans-MacBook-Pro:cut poma$ mdls copy.mov
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate = 2015-01-19 06:56:04 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate = 2015-01-19 06:56:04 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon = 0
kMDItemFSInvisible = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery = 0
kMDItemFSLabel = 0
kMDItemFSName = "copy.mov"
kMDItemFSNodeCount = 290300838
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID = 99
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID = 99
kMDItemFSSize = 290300838
kMDItemFSTypeCode = ""
.
Romans-MacBook-Pro:cut poma$ ls -la@
total 10681888
...
-rw-r--r--@ 1 poma staff 290300838 Jan 19 13:56 copy.mov
com.apple.quarantine 22
Mac_Metadata 20
-rw-rw-rw-@ 1 poma staff 290300838 Jan 19 13:12 src.mov
com.apple.quarantine 22
Mac_Metadata 20
.
Romans-MacBook-Pro:cut poma$ md5 src.mov
MD5 (src.mov) = 7d59d01e5efffe3a258eff86d8b775a0
Romans-MacBook-Pro:cut poma$ md5 copy.mov
MD5 (copy.mov) = 7d59d01e5efffe3a258eff86d8b775a0
As you can see src.mov
has different size in ls
and mdls
while for copy.mov
they are the same.
You can list all the metadata attached to a file with the mdls
command
See this answer for a sample https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/165098/19086
ls -l@
will show which extended attributes are attached to a file