[OS X TeX] Spotlight importers

[Adam R. Maxwell]

On May 3, 2005, at 01:33, Maarten Sneep wrote:

>> - Aren't hidden directories like /usr/local/teTeX searched  
>> automatically when building the SpotLight database?
>>
>
> I'm not sure if the hidden directories are indexed by default. Even  
> though the indexing is hooked into the kernel to patch all file- 
> write actions, it is still possible to exclude certain directories.  
> there are a number of md* utilities:
>     mdutil (remove an index, turn on or turn off indexing for a  
> particular volume, status. requires sudo)
>     mdimport (force a file or tree to be (re-)indexed.)
>     mdls (see what info is indexed on a file)
>     mdfind (use spotlight from the command-line, using the 'raw'  
> syntax).

No, the hidden directories (and others) aren't indexed by default,  
unfortunately.  You may have to re-index /usr/local/teTeX after a new  
install also; I'm not sure if the path filtering still applies after  
you force indexing with mdimport -f.
>
>> - Given the files in this directory are generally owned by root  
>> (depending on whether or not you stuck to the default setting when  
>> installing the TeX i-Package), should mdimport be sudo'ed?
>>
>
> I'm not sure: you can still read those files. The security issues  
> as to whether you should see a particular file in the results is  
> handled at a different level.

Right, since you can read them, there's no point in running as root.

-- Adam

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