BEOS - I'm completely ignorant.
MacOS (knowledge current as of '90 or so :-() - each file has two 4-byte
fields, creator(?) and type, as well as a resource fork and a data fork.
A mysterious file (the desktop db?) maps from creator to application and
from type to icon. Data file resource forks are used infrequently by
the app to store app-specific data.
The reason for two fields is so that you can keep the type constant while
customizing the app binding for a specific file. In addition, 4-byte
fields allow readable ascii values to be used, reducing the need for a
global registry of types and yet another database.
Win95/NT - files are bags of bytes. Executables have icons and other
resources stored in the object file header. The registry maps from file
extensions to associated app and icon.
Linux needs nothing to support the windows model, as if you can store
resources in COFF I'm sure you can store them in ELF. For the Mac model,
you might be able to store creator and type somewhere in ext2; if they
get nuked by utilities, they can be restored from /etc/magic. Just a
thought...
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