Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
- Subject: Re: Mac OS X 10.1 File Name Extension Guidelines
- From: rsharp <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 15:31:34 -0500 (CDT)
On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Richard Schreyer wrote:
>
Well, I guess I'll be the first to comment on this.
>
>
Overall, these rules make sense. Especially the part about ensuring
>
that an extension would never be hidden if that would make the file
>
appear to be a different type. It looks like it will work, on one
>
condition:
>
>
That file extensions exist for compatibility with other platforms only,
>
and that Mac OS X does not use the filename extension in determining
>
what kind of file it is. Of course, right now it appears that this is
>
sadly not the case.
Extensions are just one of the ways to determine a file type...in no way
is it meant to be the end-all be-all method. Currently, I see three
combos that we can have:
* Type & Creator Only
* Extensions Only
* Both
In the case of "Both", I'm assuming that type & creator will "win".
Then, you can also get into "magic cookie" data (i.e. peeking at the
contents of the file itself).
There's probably some technote (or there should be one soon) describing
just how a file type is determined...i.e. what data does the OS look at
first, second, etc.
In the case of file contents, when and how would that scheme be used. I
think this breaks down very quickly though. e.g. a text document named
foo whose contents start with %PDF, and a PDF document named bar which of
course starts with %PDF too. Fun huh?
Rick Sharp
Instant Interactive(tm)