Darryl Okahata <darrylo(a)sr.hp.com> writes:
> However, your idea of dynamically determining the type based upon
> file contents in an excellent suggestion (and would also solve the
> current .diff/.patch dichotomy).
I think it is the wrong thing to do. Encoding should be based upon
the file contents in the sense of the presence of 8bit chars, etc.
Type should be based on the semantics of the file.
For example, postscript files (the output of automatic converters)
would not make much sense as text/plain, because they are not
human-readable, in spite of being 7bit. Patch files *should* be
text/plain, because they *are* meant to be read by humans (especially
in the context of xemacs-patches), even if they contain 8bit chars.
In both of these cases, the issues of type and encoding are
orthogonal, except for the charset matter, as pointed out by Kyle.
The file extension may provide a good estimate of the file type, while
examining its contents allows us to choose the optimal encoding.
Please let's not "fix" what is not broken by confusing the two.
--
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic(a)srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
Reporter: Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?
Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.