What is Bud1% @ @ @ @E%DSDB` @ @ @?

Question

I have made a small app for a client. The app scans a files directory which contains several text files. It then reads each file into a string. Every file has a tit

Answer 1

This is information that the Finder (Mac equivalent of Windows Explorer) stores about files and folders. The best description of the format I found was here:

https://metacpan.org/pod/Mac::Finder::DSStore

The format is described as:

The .DS_Store file holds a series of records giving attributes of the files in the directory or of the directory itself (referred to as .). These records are stored in a B-tree, and the pages of the B-tree are stored in the file by a "buddy allocator" along with a small amount of metadata. The allocator also provides a level of indirection, from small integers to file offsets, presumably allowing blocks to be relocated as they grow and shrink.