.TH FILE 1 "Copyright but distributable"
-.\# $Id: file.man,v 1.16 1992/09/08 15:32:50 ian Exp $
+.\# $Id: file.man,v 1.17 1992/09/08 16:15:57 ian Exp $
.SH NAME
.I file
\- determine file type
program, and are not covered by the above restrictions.
.SH BUGS
There must be a better way to automate the construction of the Magic
-file from all the glop in magdir. What is it?
+file from all the glop in Magdir. What is it?
.PP
.I File
uses several algorithms that favor speed over accuracy,
.PP
Should there be an ``else'' clause to follow a series of continuation lines?
.PP
-Is it worthwhile to implement recursive file inspection,
-so that compressed files, uuencoded, etc., can say ``compressed
-ascii text'' or ``compressed executable'' or ``compressed tar archive"
-or whatever?
-.PP
The magic file and keywords should have regular expression support.
+Their use of ASCII TAB as a field delimiter is ugly and makes
+it hard to edit the files, but is entrenched.
.PP
It might be advisable to allow upper-case letters in keywords
for e.g., troff commands vs man page macros.
probably belongs in the Magic file.
This could be done by using some keyword like `*' for the offset value.
.PP
-The program should malloc the magic file structures,
-rather than using a fixed-size array as at present.
-.PP
The magic file should be compiled into binary
(or better yet, fixed-length ASCII strings
for use in heterogenous network environments) for faster startup.