Re: [rox-devel] mime types

[Ernst De R. <hnr...@in...>]

On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 05:37:41AM -0600, Albert Wagner wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Feb 2003 17:23:04 +0100
> Ernst De Ridder <hnr...@in...> wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Feb 15, 2003 at 03:46:46AM -0600, Albert Wagner wrote:
> > > Rox uses only the globs capability of the freedesktop database, and
> > > then obfuscates all such mimetypes that have an executable
> > > permission by overriding the glob derived mimetype with
> > > application/x-executable. Can we have a switch that turns off this
> > > obfuscation?  It is currently
> > 
> > I think there is one? In Options.Filetypes there's a checkbox 'ignore
> > eXecutable bit for known mime-types'. Or isn't that what you meant?
> 
> That switch is actually: 'ignore eXecutable bit for known extensions',

Oops. You're right.

> which doesn't do what I want.  There are a variety of file types that
> may be executable and they often do not have extensions, e.g. bash,
> perl, python and ruby files.  This is why to differentiate them you must
> use magic, at least selectively on executables.

I understand now what you mean. But why would you want to know the
difference? When you want to run it, you click it, when you to have a look
at it, you shift-click it. Works for either binary or text. From a general
point of view, overriding derived mime types because of a particular bit is
of course a bit untidy - but it is also a practical solution.

> > 1) magic is slow. It requires reading every file. Try finding xplore
> Yes, I can see how, if it is used on each file in a large directory that
> it would be slow; But not as slow as the user selecting info on each one
> individually in order to read the File(1) says...

:-)

> Yes, I understand that it is sometimes wrong and in those cases should
> be avoided.  But, what if it were used selectively, only on executables
> without extensions, to differentiate between binary executables and
> translated text executables?  It seems that it would always be correct
> in that case because the differences are explicit: #!/usr/bin/env <lang>
> and etc. in the first line.

As long as you don't make a habit of browsing /usr/bin, this should work
performance-wise. I can't think of anything that speaks against that
solution:
if no mime glob matches
and executable bit set
then check magic
Right?

Ernst

-- 
Ernst de Ridder - hnr...@in...
Universitaet Rostock - Lehrstuhl fuer Theoretische Informatik
Albert Einstein Str. 21 - D-18051 Rostock - Germany
http://wwwteo.informatik.uni-rostock.de/~hnridder