> Why is this an issue?
> Why even separate private data into metadata and data?
Because it allows for complicated metadata to be retrieved separately from
the data for speed. For example, you can 'stat' a freenet file by issuing
a request for the metadata only section of a document. The node returns
only "Metadata-length" bytes of the document.
> or maybe the shorter:
> "FNP-type=redirect.v.0.1"
Thats not even close to necessary enough to support rich metadata for
applications today.
> Surely checking for those characters to show up at the beginning of the file
> is not difficult nor time-consuming.
It takes a lot more time than a simple numeric comparison, but thats not
even the issue.
> If the clients are interested in using FNP messages (which I suspect most of
> them will be), they will look for something along those lines as the first
> bits of
> data in the file. If it can't interpret the first line then it will do its
> thing to
> find out
> how best to handle the file (i.e. interpret is as a graphics header/mime
> header/
> play the mp3/save it to a file/pass it along to something smarter).
THATS the point. When you have freenet control messages (like redirects),
trying to parse the message as an FNP message and then trying to recover
when it isn't is a huge kludge. Its just baaaaad programming.
> The network should have no business dictating the format of the metadata but
> can certainly have some special formats to keep things consistent and clients
> interoperatable from day-one.
Precisely.
> There is nothing saying that all future FNP messages will not have a
> separate data section that contains a binary package with some useful
> function.
> So using the anomylous condition of data-length=0 might not be that
> future-proof
> (or might force future designers into an uncomfortable box since they don't
> want to trash all the previous redirects that have been inserted into the
> system).
If you're sticking special information in there, its not metadata, its a
file. So it should have a datasection and should not be a control
message.
> Additionally, I thought data-length=0 was being saved for continuously
> streaming
> data (webcams and such)? But I guess that would be the data-length value in
> the
> public metadata.
No. This isn't data-length==0, its data-length==metadata-length. (IE some
data present, but all of it is metadata).
Scott
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