Linux & application metadata

[Alex Rice]

On Thursday, September 25, 2003, at 05:21  PM, Monte Goulding wrote:
> Just wondering the what, where and how of application metadata on 
> Linux.
> Specifically I'm interested in file associations but I'm sure other 
> stuff
> would come in handy. I know UNIX systems usually look into the file to 
> see
> which app it's associated with but this just doesn't seem logical for a
> modern operating system with a desktop etc.

You are referring to the "magic number" I guess? The OS can use the 
magic number to distinguish from a binary executable and a shell 
script- but it's not too very useful beyond that.

AFAIK there is no standard UNIX way of binding files to applications- 
this would be handled at the level of the "Window Manager", and there 
are literally dozens of competing Window Managers for UNIX. The most 
popular Linux and BSD ones being KDE and Gnome.

KDE does it with MIME types- other Window Managers probably also use 
MIME types as well, but there is no standard file location or format 
that I know of for this stuff.

HTH,

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco