What does the undocumented switch, `-t`, do for the `mdutil` utility?

Question

In the process of troubleshooting why my Time Machine setup was not completing any backup operations and hadn't finished backing my machine up since 4PM today — it's now 11:49PM —, I saw two suspicious console log entries as follows (btw: after a re-boot, Time Machine completed, but I'd still like to clean up my console log messages and/or spotlight, as the case may be):

*9/24/13 11:36:57.053 PM sandboxd[485]: ([484]) mdworker32(484) deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:200000056 diag:0 uti:org.openxmlformats.spreadsheetml.sheet plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 9288141)*

and

*9/24/13 11:37:57.524 PM sandboxd[499]: ([498]) mdworker32(498) deny mach-lookup com.apple.PowerManagement.control (import fstype:hfs fsflag:480D000 flags:200000056 diag:0 uti:com.microsoft.excel.openxmlformats.spreadsheetml.sheet plugin:/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Office.mdimporter - find suspect file using: sudo mdutil -t 2795200)*

I did as suggested, and rather than bore you all with that content (and have to figure out how to make it not auto-wrap in this field), here's the question: What does the undocumented switch, -t, do for the mdutil utility? I've looked in the man page and several man pages online, and none document this switch.

Well, maybe I can format one of them:

whmcclos@mbp ~
$ sudo mdutil -t 9288141
dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/usr/bin/sudo) is setuid or setgid
Password:
/Users/whmcclos/Documents/Medical Expenses.xlsx
/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/William’s MacBook Pro/2013-09-24-160438/Macintosh HD/Applications/Adobe Fireworks CS6/Adobe Fireworks CS6.app/Contents/Frameworks/ICUData.framework/Versions/4.0

OK - that wasn't hard - here's the other (I'm gettin' tired!):

whmcclos@mbp ~
$ sudo mdutil -t 2795200
dyld: DYLD_ environment variables being ignored because main executable (/usr/bin/sudo) is setuid or setgid
/Users/whmcclos/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Excel Toolbars (12)

Answer 1

mdutil -t can be used to display the real path from an inode number. For example you can do the following:

> touch /tmp/aFile
> ls -i /tmp/aFile
31405051 /tmp/aFile
> mdutil -t 31405051
/private/tmp/aFile

Answer 2

My educated guess is that mdutil -t /path/to returns the TRUE absolute path of a file or folder. For example:

$ diskutil -t /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

When creating a symlink

$ cd /this/is/a
$ ln -s /this/is/a/real/path /this/is/a/symlink
$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/symlink
/this/is/a/real/path

And when using a relative path

$ cd /this/is/a
$ mdutil -t real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

This behavior is almost identical without using the -t flag, except for the trailing : after the pathname.

$ mdutil /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path:

But when using a non existing path with -t, it gives a message and not an error.

$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Unable to resolve path

$ mdutil /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Error: invalid path `/this/is/a/nonexisting/path'.