[interfacekit] __mime_table
- From: Tyler Dauwalder <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: interfacekit@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 23:49:02 -0700
Hi folks,
When writing the BMimeType::GetSupportingApps() tests, I decided to
manually build my own supporting apps table and compare it to the
information returned by GetSupportingApps(). The strange thing was,
for certain types, GetSupportingApps() returned *more* app signatures
than I had collected by compiling the META:FILE_TYPES attributes of
all the "application/" types. Furthermore, I was finding app
signatures that didn't even exist in my database.
I eventually discovered that this extra information was being taken
from the file "__mime_table" in the root directory of the MIME
database (which is just a flattened BMessage). The interesting thing
is, if you change the __mime_table file (i.e. by unflattening it,
adding to it, then re-flattening it), it 1) has no effect on
GetSupportingApps() (not too surprising, the registrar probably
caches it) but 2) is eventually (i.e. within a few minutes) restored
to its original condition by some agent (again, assumingly the
registrar).
I assume, then, that somewhere there is an API (possibly just a
message protocol to the roster/registrar) to make concrete changes to
the __mime_table, as my __mime_table is larger than the __mime_table
of a clean install, and contains entries from applications I once
installed but have since removed (such as BeatWare Mail-It). Does
anybody know about such an API (presumably from the olden days) off
hand?
I suppose we ought to try to support this API if we want to be truly
backwards compatible, but I don't currently have any great
suggestions as to how we should go about this. I'm not going to put
too much effort into it right now, as there are other things that
need doing, but I thought I'd mention it here so we don't forget to
possibly look into it at a later date. :-)
One other MIME related thing I should mention is that, while speaking
with AnEvilYak a few weeks ago, he noted that the automatic MIME
sniffer on his system never runs when he has something like SETI
running in the background all the time. He mentioned that it might be
nice if we could implement a way around this, as he always has to
manually identify files otherwise.
-Tyler
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