$ chft latex_sjis myfile.tex
$ chft -R latex2e_class $TEXMF/tex/latex/base
The keywords latex_sjis, latex2e_class etc should be managed in a
similar way as owners and groups are managed now. Moreover they
should point to a user-editable database which should again support
pointing to other data of any desired complexity (even whole
directories containing meta-information), with a query routine for
these data in the system library.
This would allow getting rid of the unstable file(1) mechanism.
Any application, such as an XWindow File Manager, could then open
the right applications when a user clicks at a file. For example,
in the above case it could run the pipe sjis && latex && xdvi, if
this is so configured in the user-editable database.
At first sight this may look like a proposal to bloat the Unix file
system. But the filetype info really belongs into each directory
entry, because
(1) Each file inherently belongs to some type
(2) The info cannot be added onto the file, because existing
file types (such as images) would be corrupted by such addition
(3) The info cannot be given by writing it into a separate file,
because file utilities (such as mv, cp, ln) know nothing about
such file grouping and will always tear the groups apart.
(4) An additional integer isn't really bloat
-- Hartmut Pilch http://www.a2e.de/phm/- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/