Exporting directory listing as text

[gingerbeardman]

I'd like to Exporting directory listing as text. Wondering about the best way.

Would it be possible to run the app in a "headless" mode, to dump the directory contents of an disc/disk image into a text file?

I suppose text format would need to be Unicode so that MacJapanese etc filenames can be presented correctly.

With a whole bunch of ISOs of this now largely unsupported format I like to keep plain text files. My workflow involves indexing the CD-ROM in an emulator, copying the proprietary catalogue database to modern macOS, importing it into more recent cataloguing app, then exporting the Unicode text.

I'd much prefer to be able to issue a command something like:
hfsexplorer --headless --input CD.ISO --partition Apple_HFS --encoding MacJapanese --output CD.txt

Thoughts appreciated.

[gingerbeardman]

Alternatives Considered

hfsutils

• mount an HFS volume using hfmount
• list contents using hls -1aR

problems

• mount is not recognised by at a system level
• no support for foreign encodings: MacJapanese, etc
• unsupported?

[gingerbeardman]

I have found a way to use hfsutils and get valid MacJapanese output! It kinda works half the time. Hit or miss depending on something I don't really know what.

$ touch file.txt                                               # create blank file
$ xattr -w com.apple.TextEncoding "X-MAC-JAPANESE;1" file.txt  # set encoding extended attribute
$ hmount CD.ISO                                                # mount disk image
$ hls -1aR >> file.txt                                         # list directory structure

I then open the file in a compatible text editor:

• TextEdit (macOS app)
• BBEdit (this can reload the file without encoding xattr)
• CotEditor (this editor Japanese origin is clever enough to figure out the correct encoding!)
• Jedit Ω (another editor Japanese origin that is clever enough to figure out the correct encoding)
• Microsoft Word (prompts to select encoding on load)

But not in:

• TextMate
• SublimeText
• SubEthaEdit

[gingerbeardman]

Solved with feature request #25