Re: semantics of gnome_vfs_get_file_info_from_handle

[Chipzz <chipzz ULYSSIS Org>]

On 3 Feb 2003, Colin Walters wrote:

> From: Colin Walters <walters debian org>
> Subject: semantics of gnome_vfs_get_file_info_from_handle
>
> Is it just me, or does anyone else find the semantics of
> gnome_vfs_get_file_info_from_handle not useful?
>
> What I want is for it to retrieve information collected during the
> handle creation.  For example, the HTTP method parses the HTTP headers
> like Content-Type, and stores that information in
> handle->file_info->mime_type.  However, the implementation
> do_get_file_info_from_handle makes an entirely new HTTP request!  This
> is not what I want.
>
> Here is sample code which should illustrate this:
>
> GnomeVFSHandle *handle;
> GnomeVFSInfo *info;
> gnome_vfs_open_uri (&handle, "http://blaat.com/";, GNOME_VFS_OPEN_READ);
> info = gnome_vfs_file_info_new ();
> gnome_vfs_get_file_info_from_handle (src->handle, info, GNOME_VFS_FILE_INFO_DEFAULT);
>
> All I really want to do is extract that Content-Type information
> gathered during the HTTP request without wastefully making another.
>
> The file method seems to do much the same thing.  In its "do_open" call,
> it does actually run fstat, but throws away all the information gained.
> Its do_get_file_info_from_handle method makes *another* fstat call.
>
> I think we should change the semantics of
> gnome_vfs_get_file_info_from_handle to make it conceptually a "fast"
> operation; i.e. it will work from whatever information the module handle
> currently has.  Applications which want to do a full "stat" type thing
> can just use the _uri method.
>
> Alternatively...we could create a new method to do just this.
>
> What do you think?

I think you're 100% right... Worse, I think this is a bug as it may re-
turn the wrong information (imagine a simple cgi script that returns a
random file from a directory, which may contain text files, gifs, jpegs
...)

Kind regards,

Chipzz AKA
Jan Van Buggenhout
-- 

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                 UNIX isn't dead - It just smells funny
                           Chipzz ULYSSIS Org
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