> Actually orthogonality is the key to good design, so if we already have a > combination of fields (DataLength and meta-data length) that imply that > something is a control message or not, putting in another field to say so > explicitely is bad design. What is "immediately obvious" to you is not > that important, humans are not going to be looking at these messages.
Zero-length data can't be used to indicate that a file is a Freenet control file in my scheme anyway because the non-metadata portion of the file should be contained in the data section of the file. The reason for this is because consistency is good. Therefore, the metadata should be in the metadata section. The data should be in the data section. For a redirect, the data is the URL. For an index, the data is the list of URLs. A freenet control file should be treated as a file like any other. A this-is-a-control-file field is because Scott wants a fast way for a client to tell if a file is a control file or not. However, if the data is contained in the data field, then using the length of the data won't work. _______________________________________________ Freenet-dev mailing list Freenet-dev at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/freenet-dev
