GnomeVFSFileType vs. mime types

[Darin Fisher <darin meer net>]

I developed an extension for Mozilla that uses GnomeVFS to access 
protocols such as smb: and sftp:.  To support directory listings as well 
as file retrieval, I had to add code to determine whether to call 
gnome_vfs_directory_open or simply gnome_vfs_open.  The code I used 
checks the mime type of the URL by callling gnome_vfs_get_file_info.

I noticed that this function seems to return a mime type of 
"x-directory/normal" when the URL corresponds to a directory.  So, the 
code in Mozilla currently tests for this mime type, and calls 
gnome_vfs_directory_open if it detects this mime type.

Now, when I upgraded my system to Gnome 2.6, I noticed that the smb: 
protocol handler sometimes returns a mime type of "x-directory/smbshare" 
and in some cases it even returns an empty string for the mime type.  I 
think the empty string case is probably a bug in the smb: protocol 
handler code, but I haven't verified that.

At this point, I feel that checking the mime type is probably not the 
best solution.  I could check for "x-directory/" prefixes, but I haven't 
found any documentation to confirm that that is the right thing to do.  
And, besides... what do I do in the case where that mime type is 
sometimes empty?

So, I modified the code to use the GnomeVFSFileInfo::type instead of 
mime_type.  I just test for the value of GNOME_VFS_FILE_TYPE_DIRECTORY, 
and everything appears to be happy.

However, there is this comment in gnome-vfs-file-info.h:

/**
* GnomeVFSFileType:
...
* Identifies the kind of file represented by a #GnomeVFSFileInfo 
struct. (note,
* use of MIME types is preferred as this field may eventually disappear)
**/

So, if use of mime types is preferred, what should I do?

Thanks in advance for any advice,
Darin

p.s., this is in regard to 
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=255032