On 2011-01-05 13:45, Rob McBroom wrote:
Until every platform agrees on a way to store metadata and every network protocol is updated to transmit that metadata along with the file, I think we're stuck using extensions.
Well, we *could* infer the file type from its actual content instead of hoping that the filename and other metadata are present and correct. The 'file' command does this pretty successfully, though it does sometimes get fooled trying to identify the specifics of text files. Many editors use a combination of content detection and file extension to figure out the file type. (That's a hint, Allan! :-)
$ file * INSTALL: ASCII English text MAINTAINERS: UTF-8 Unicode English text Makefile: ASCII make commands text README: ASCII English text config.err: ASCII c program text, with very long lines config.h: ASCII c program text config.log: ASCII c program text, with very long lines configure: POSIX shell script text executable doc: directory ffmpeg: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64 ffmpeg.c: ASCII c program text ffmpeg.d: ASCII text ffmpeg.o: Mach-O 64-bit object x86_64