Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:20:02 -0700 (PDT) From: dbushong@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (David Bushong) To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/12554: File to go in /usr/src/usr.bin/file/Magdir/warcraft2 Message-ID: <199907191920.MAA97769@freefall.freebsd.org>
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The following reply was made to PR bin/12554; it has been noted by GNATS.
From: dbushong@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (David Bushong)
To: sheldonh@uunet.co.za (Sheldon Hearn)
Cc: dbushong@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU, freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org,
lyndon@orthanc.ab.ca
Subject: Re: bin/12554: File to go in /usr/src/usr.bin/file/Magdir/warcraft2
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:14:55 -0700 (PDT)
That's definitely a possiblity. I'm not overly concerned whether or not this
makes its way into the system magic file, I just thought some people might like
it. Your ports idea is a good one; however, here are my thoughts on the
matter:
I think file(1) should have as "bloated" a magic database as possible. I think
if file(1) recognized every possible file format on earth, that would be really
cool. If the ascii format magic file is already beginning to show a speed
hit from the current amount of bloat, I think file(1) should move to a database
format. I assume the internal file(1) code already uses some type of tree
based search which is efficient, so it's just a question of precompiling the
data into a binary-format magic file. But I digress. The argument of "blah
is used by the base system" is obviously pointless as there's Excel, Word,
etc etc files in there. "But people deal with those all the time for one
reason or another in FreeBSD and there are programs that do stuff with them
under FreeBSD like StarOffice". Indeed, but those aren't in the base system.
They are, however, very useful. In general being able to recognize any
arbitrary piece of binary data (and not have it come up "troff macro file"
like lame Unices with neutered magic files do) is a very very good thing.
I'd like to see the magic file grow.
But that's just my opinion.
(As for the bloat of it being in the source tree, I can't see it ever, ever
approaching the size of..say.. Perl 5)
>
> Hi David,
>
> I've looked at the precedent which you offered for having game file(1)
> formats in the base system. I'm pretty sure that the Infocom file format
> is used by a game in the base system.
>
> I'll tell you what's making my skin crawl, here. I worry about having a
> hugely bloated src/usr.bin/file/Magdir in our source tree. Now that does
> seem like a counter-productive paranoia, but I can't shake it.
>
> Since file(1) already has a command-line option (-m) for specifying
> additional magic files, here's what I propose. I'd like to modify
> file(1) so that it honours an environment variable, perhaps MAGDIRS. The
> variable includes a colon-separated list of paths to additional magic
> files.
>
> The idea is that your port would include an install-time message that
> says something like "add MAGDIRS=${PREFIX}/share/misc/magic to
> /etc/profile so that file(1) will recognize WarCraft2 save files".
>
> What do you think?
>
> Ciao,
> Sheldon.
>
--David Bushong
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