From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII X-Google-Thread: 103376,29495b0e9519b616 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-12-13 22:12:59 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!82-43-33-75.cable.ubr01.croy.blueyonder.co.UK!not-for-mail From: Nick Roberts Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Latin_1 and portability Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 06:12:55 +0000 Message-ID: References: <20031214034629.3960d5a8.bjorn_persson.spam-is-evil@sverige.nu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 82-43-33-75.cable.ubr01.croy.blueyonder.co.uk (82.43.33.75) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1071382377 3209367 82.43.33.75 ([25716]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-GB; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en, en-us In-Reply-To: Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:3458 Date: 2003-12-14T06:12:55+00:00 List-Id: Jeff C, wrote: > "Bj�rn Persson" wrote in message > news:20031214034629.3960d5a8.bjorn_persson.spam-is-evil@sverige.nu... > > As a result, the file server can't know which files should be converted, it > > can't know which format to expect from a certain client, and it can't know > > which format a certain client needs; and there's not much AdaOS can do to > > help. > > Ah..But you miss the ultimate power of AdaOS. Since it does not exist and is > never likely to exist, it is capable of claiming to perform all sorts of > endless wonders... It's true that AdaOS does not yet exist, and it surely will not for several years yet, but I remain as determined as ever to see it through, however long that takes. Anyway, it's not really of importance to Bj�rn's point. I think all he meant to imply is that there's not much /some future operating system/ can do to help. In essence, that's quite correct. However, for the curious, AdaOS will have a way of coping with the problem (as it will have to, of course). AdaOS will be object oriented, and files will be objects, and so strictly typed. Of course one type will be 'opaque binary', but all text files will have suitable types, parametised by encoding and character set. I anticipate developing (and evolving) a piece of software in AdaOS which will use a strategy to guess the correct type of imported files. When obtaining a file by HTTP or FTP, it may be able to obtain a MIME type string, for example. For files coming from some kinds of systems, it may use a part of the name (the 'file type extension'). It may examine the file's contents. It might ask the user to supply or confirm the type. (Generally, the user will have to be asked for other information about the file anyway.) Normally, every external file imported into a system will be permanently represented by an internal object. In this object will be stored a lot of information about the external file, including the (confirmed) type, and this type would generally be re-used whenever the file was re-accessed. (In fact, the file contents may be temporarily cached in the object anyway, according to parametised criteria.) -- Nick Roberts __________________________________________________________ | Fight Spam! Join EuroCAUCE: http://www.euro.cauce.org/ | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~