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: Brendan Younger <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 13:49:50 -0400
On Sunday, September 9, 2001, at 12:17 PM, Bill Chin wrote:
On Sunday, September 9, 2001, at 10:13 AM, Mark Munz wrote:
Wait, isn't putting the definition of what type of document I'm
dealing with
a throwback to the early years when disk space was expensive and in
short
supply, when saving 4 bytes was crucial, when we used .txt to define a
text
file and such. Apparently we haven't come very far.
Actually, with file name extensions, I can create an application that
uses .hypertext as an extension under Mac OS X today. With current HFS+
implementation, we're limited to 4 character type codes (HTXT). Which
one is more limiting?
And you're right. We haven't come very far.
The fact that it is a four "character" code does not in *any* way limit
it. It's implemented as a long int and can thus have up to 4294967295
possible values. That is far more than will ever be needed. Also, the
fact that it is completely hidden from the user and only its
manifestation is presented is a point for it over file extensions. (No
one actually cares whether it's hTXT or HTXT or HTEX, a program that
wants to know it's type just looks for the appropriate code. No
aesthetic judgement is necessary.) In addition, the fact is that
type/creator codes carry twice the information and thus have the number
of options provided by extensions squared. The naive idea that all .rtf
files should be opened in the same application should not be tolerated
when there is a very workable alternative.
Brendan Younger