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Re: merge mode for XML


From: Eric Siegerman
Subject: Re: merge mode for XML
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 20:05:04 -0400
User-agent: Mutt/1.2.5i

On Fri, May 03, 2002 at 04:43:11PM -0400, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Friday, May 3, 2002 at 14:49:11 (-0500), Sean Hager wrote: ]
> > Subject: RE: merge mode for XML
> > > No.  Not on extension, but based on *regular expressions*, or at least
> > > shell-style   pattern  matching   expressions.   Extensions   are  too
> > > simplistic.  (c.f. CVSROOT/cvswrappers,  CVSROOT/cvsignore)
> > 
> > Extensions would work fine, pattern matching is overkill.
> 
> Neither is suitable or sufficient.

Agreed!  I *know* I've had conflicts in CVSROOT/cvswrappers in
the past (having a text file treated as binary because it happens
to have an extension that also signifies some binary format);
just can't remember what they were.

But here are some counterexamples anyway:

  - .doc:  we all know what M$ thinks it means, but other people
    have their own ideas.  I've seen text files with .doc
    extensions, and I'd bet other word- or document-processors
    have used it too

  - .cfg:  some kind of configuration file ... but it could be
    anything from Windows-ini format to XML to pseudo-Lisp to
    binary

  - .cgi:  again, that says how it functions -- in this case,
    what its API is -- but says *nothing* about the file format;
    CGI "scripts" can be in any language you like, including C

  - In general, on *NIX machines where extensions are more a
    convention than an OS-mandated thing, people tend to play
    fast and loose with them.  E.g. one could conceive of a
    directory full of files named for Internet domains --
    including Australian ones ending in ".au", which is also an
    audio format

  - And the killer is .bak:  can be anything under the sun, of
    course.  Usually people don't check them in, but it would be
    foolish in the extreme to presume they *never* do, and to
    make doing so functionally useless

That's just from the A-D part of a list of file extensions.  I'm
sure there are lots more conflicts in E-Z.

Oh, and of course there's .sys;  even M$ can't decide what that
signifies.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
|  |  /
Anyone who swims with the current will reach the big music steamship;
whoever swims against the current will perhaps reach the source.
        - Paul Schneider-Esleben



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