Re: [Summary] Meta-data/filesystem-encapsulation

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel nuclecu unam mx>]

> 1) Could this be extended to allow logical operations in the
>    specifier? For instance, "re/.*\.jpg" || "file/JPEG image data"?
>    Would it make sense? (I think so, it would allow easier
>    differentiation between say, mailboxes and mh messages)

Well, the above example is jut an or.   And that can be achieved by
having two entries one for each type you are trying to match.

Now, for the purposes of the iconic file display we really do not want
to use the "file" action as it is a pretty expensive operation.

> 2) Is this a general mechanism that we can make available to any
>    program, or can we make it so? 

It should be trivial to make this code a library that any app could
use.  Or alternatively epxort it trough corba.

> 3) Are there any instances that this mechanism that doesn't yet cover
>    which would require per-file metadata? is there any way we can
>    extend this system to avoid that need?

The approach is not perfect, but is good enough.

I guess we can always support this method for most systems and in the
future, when file systems get metadata information attached to a file
we could add this support to it as well.

Miguel.