It may well be that Apple has been making bad decisions regarding the use of extensions. However, it is clear that they HAVE made decisions: Get Info is quite willing to base launch decisions on extensions.
That said, I'm willing to use another way, if it can be accomplished in a robust and (relatively) simple manner. Here is the situation:
* Most of the files are being created by a Perl script. Some of the
files, however, are being edited by hand (e.g., by BBEdit or vi). * The files don't have ANY resource forks, but I suppose these could
be added.I'm willing to run a script over the files to set their Type or whatever, if this will make for a more robust solution (eg, when someone else's xyz file appears). My understanding, however, is that these four-letter codes are regulated, and I'm not all that interested in jumping through a bunch of hoops with Apple to get this accomplished.
What specific procedure would you suggest that I follow?
-r
At 9:08 AM +0900 4/24/05, Joel Rees wrote:
To clarify my request, I do NOT want to muck about with Type or Creator codes, as that requires each file to be created and maintained with the codes in question. Rather, I want to use the files' extension to cause the "right" application to be used.
I'm sure you're aware, Rich, that the file extension should not be used be the system except as an advisory entry. File extensions were originally intended as only a clue for the human user, and that's the way they work best.
It seems to me that Apple's drive to abandon the hidden meta-data typing and depend entirely on the file extension has transmorgrified into a move away from the old four-byte codes and towards a more detailed meta-data structure. I haven't seen the changes in Tiger, but I do hope they have learned that depending on file extension is one of the many things they do not want to copy from MSWxxx.
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