Subject: Re: CRLF fun stuff again...
From: Bob Rogers (rogers-netatalk@rgrjr.dyndns.org)
Date: Mon Feb 12 2001 - 11:18:03 EST
From: "Marc J. Miller" <itlm019@mailbox.ucdavis.edu>
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 19:43:36 -0800
At 10:18 AM 2/10/01 +0000, Duncan Sinclair wrote:
>You know a file is text by two indicators:
> 1) Its file type is TEXT.
> 2) It has an extension which tells netatalk it is text.
>
>These two indicators cover files created by Macs and files created
>by Unix, repectively.
Okay, I agree with the former, but the latter is a little more
complicated. String compares are slow. For each file copied, the
name has to be checked against the following list (and this is just
off the top of my head) . . .
If necessary, this table lookup could be hashed for speed (if it isn't
already). But I would be very surprised to learn that the speed
difference was even measurable, compared to the other overhead of
opening & serving a file. String compares aren't *that* slow. And
since this lookup only applies for files created by Unix (or Samba),
it's even less of an issue.
. . . I've observed that most Unix and Mac people don't use file
extensions at all.
I beg to differ; who else but a Unix person would think of compound
extensions like .tar.gz, or .i386.rpm ? And could you imagine `make'
without extensions?
The scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d on Red Hat systems don't have
extensions, yet they're all text.
They are scripts, actually, which conventionally have no extension.
(Except for the odd ".sh" or ".csh" script, but then you have to type
the extension at the shell prompt, which is probably why using an
explicit extension isn't popular.)
. . . File extensions were introduced through DOS, really . . .
;-} Next thing you know, you'll be suggesting that Bill Gates invented
GUIs and the Internet . . .
Until the early 80's, IIRC, file systems almost universally required
extensions; Unix was the (then) rare exception in that it didn't parse
"." specially. Then the Mac (actually, the Apple Lisa) changed
everything . . .
Thanks in advance for being a good sport,
-- Bob Rogers
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