Files are invisible

Question

Ok...I have an external FireWire Drive that I used to unarchive a .rar file. The files are there, but I cannot see them. I used OmniDiskSweeper to check the folder and the files that I can't see all start with .filename
How do I remove the . so I can see these files? What does that . mean and why does it hide files?
Thanks

Answer 1

Files with a name starting with a period are invisible in the Finder, as it is an UNIX custom. You can enter the following command in the Terminal to make all files visible in the Finder:
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles 1
Alternatively, this AppleScript will remove the period from the front of all files in a given folder:
set my_path to "~/Desktop/123/"
do shell script "ls -a " & my_path
set the_files to every paragraph of the result
set the_files to rest of the rest of the_files
repeat with this_file in the_files
if this_file begins with "." then
set new_name to items 2 thru (count this_file) of this_file
do shell script "mv " & my_path & this_file & " " & my_path & new_name
end if
end repeat
In either case, you may not be able to see the files in the Finder until you log out and back in.
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