Short answer: use gzipped tar instead of zip; it honors resource forks, and
can be expanded by double-clicking in the Finder in the same way zips can.
Syntax:

archive: tar zcvf MyTarFile.tgz MyFile1 [MyFile2 MyFile3 etc...]
extract: tar zxvf MyTarFile.tgz

(Omit the v's if you don't want it display what files it has processed.)

Long answer:

The Finder handles archives via /System/Library/CoreServices/Archive
Utility.app (BOMArchiveHelper.app prior to Leopard). When you choose
"Compress..." (or "Create Archive" in Tiger), it creates the following
inside your zip file:

MyForkedFile
__MAC OS X/._MyForkedFile

The first file is the data fork, and the second contains both Finder
metadata and the resource fork (in that order). When you double-click a .zip
file made this way, Archive Utility knows to glue them back together and
provide you with a single forked file.

Unfortunately, the zip command line tool doesn't honor this structure, and
if you unzip an archive created via the Finder, the above is exactly what
you'll get, rather than a single forked file.

In 10.5.2, the zip man page is definitely out of sync with the program; it
looks as though they had plans on making it more fork-friendly, but that's
not what shipped. Neither the Mac-specific -df or -S options actually work
when invoked.

If you want to actually access or separate the data and resource forks, you
can access the resource fork from the command line with this syntax:
 
MyForkedFile/..namedfork/rsrc
(This can also be abbreviated to MyForkedFile/rsrc, though this form has
been deprecated, meaning it may stop working in some future version of Mac
OS X.)

I tried using this technique to see if I could make an AS routine that would
make .zip files that are compatible with the ones created by Archive
Utility, but the problem is I also need the Finder header information so it
knows what kind of file it is, and then I remembered that tar will do all of
this already.

Best,
Ivan.



On 5/8/08 7:47 AM, "Mark J. Reed" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> When I compress files via the Finder, I get a .zip file that includes
> the resource forks.  When I use zip from the shell, no such luck. I've
> checked the man page and it mentions an option to exclude the resource
> fork, but it seems to be doing that by default, and I don't see the
> inverse option.  So how can I get a zip file inclusive of resource
> forks from the shell?