Re: Carrying Attributes too Far

[Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca>]

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>>>>> "Alexander" =3D=3D Alexander G M Smith <agmsmith@rogers.com> writes:

[...]

Alexander> I'd also like to attach a BeOS style MIME type attribute to
Alexander> everything, even attributes (and you wouldn't have to name
Alexander> the file .jpeg any more).  Of course, you will eventually get
Alexander> to primitive attributes that are only a coded byte in the
Alexander> metadata rather than a whole file.  But the user shouldn't be
Alexander> able to tell, and even the MIME type attribute could have a
Alexander> fake attribute on it saying that it is of type "text/plain",
Alexander> or perhaps more explicitly "text/mime-string".

AFAICT, MIME types should be user-entered data (or divined from file
extensions, or placed there by a web browser, etc.)  They probably
shouldn't be automatically generated.  So the MIME/MIME/... loop would
only go as far as the user would care to enter the data, which probably
won't be very far.

I suppose that MIME data could be generated by a plugin that used
file(1), but any plugin that took the MIME nesting too far (i.e. more
than one level) should probably be taken out and shot.

Alexander> To avoid too much recursion, "ls" and other utilities should
Alexander> know which things are primitive things, and avoid trying to
Alexander> list their contents.  The easiest way to cram that in would
Alexander> be to add another attribute:

Alexander> Graphic.jpeg/MIME/Primitive contains "true", or maybe a
Alexander> single byte value that is non-zero.  Pick one.

I think that the easiest thing would be to just say that if MIME
doesn't contain a MIME attribute, then it's "primitive" (or whatever).
You'll have a lot of files floating around that won't have MIME
attributes anyways.  Even if you had a file(1) plugin, since file(1)
can't identify everything (and misidentifies some things).

Alexander> Note it's not Graphic.jpeg/MIME/.Primitive since using a dot
Alexander> prefix to hide things may no longer be necessary - another
Alexander> attribute could take over that job, perhaps call it
Alexander> HideFromUser.

"hidden" is much preferable over "HideFromUser".

=2D-=20
Hubert Chan <hubert@uhoreg.ca> - http://www.uhoreg.ca/
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