From eaccd6230bfc40a4e7bd20e4786b3ebfaad93cff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ian Darwin Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1987 22:28:41 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add notes about byte-swapping and the length of the man page. --- doc/file.man | 23 +++++++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/file.man b/doc/file.man index 652f21a0..f41b1d5a 100644 --- a/doc/file.man +++ b/doc/file.man @@ -243,10 +243,10 @@ is simplistic, inefficient and requires recompilation to update. .PP Should there be an ``else'' clause to follow a series of continuation lines? .PP -It might be worthwhile to implement recursive file inspection, +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. +or whatever? .PP The magic file and keywords should have regular expression support. .PP @@ -262,15 +262,14 @@ Regular expression support would make this easy. The list of keywords in .I ascmagic probably belongs in the Magic file. -This could be done simply by using some keyword like `*' for the offset value. +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 an array as at present. +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. +for use in heterogenous network environments) for faster startup. Then the program would run as fast as the Version 7 program of the same name, with the flexibility of the System V version. But then there would have to be yet another magic number for the @@ -284,9 +283,17 @@ have fetched it. Complain about conflicts in the magic file entries. Make a rule that the magic entries sort based on file offset rather than position within the magic file? .PP -The program should provide a way to give an estimate of -``how good'' a guess is. +The program should provide a way to give an estimate +of ``how good'' a guess is. We end up removing guesses (e.g. ``From '' as first 5 chars of file) because they are not as good as other guesses (e.g. ``Newsgroups:'' versus "Return-Path:"). Still, if the others don't pan out, it should be possible to use the first guess. +.PP +Perhaps the program should automatically try all tests with +byte-swapping done, to avoid having to figure out the byte-swapped values +when constructing the magic file. +Of course this will run more slowly, so it should probably be +an option (-a?). +.PP +This manual page, and particularly this section, is too long. -- 2.40.0