Re: typed pipes

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> The first time I discussed it my suggestion was to use MIME types.  I
> am not sure that is the correct solution, but it should definitely be
> on a higher level than just Ada.Sequential_IO (Character).  Do we have
> something better than MIME types to give a short, but reasonably
> consistent description of a data stream?

Yes, MIME types seems a lot better than trying to describe complex data
types in detail. A MIME type is just a name for the file type, not a
description, but that's enough. If the program can handle the file type
then it already knows the structure and doesn't need a description, and if
it's an unknown file type then the program won't know what to do with the
file no matter how detailed the structure is described.

MIME types can be stored as extended attributes in some file systems. I
don't really know how feasible it would be to add them to pipes.

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                   omb jor ers @sv ge.
                   r o.b n.p son eri nu