jdlugosz(_at_)kodak(_dot_)com writes:
If every text file included a MIME header (every file period, for that
matter), or if there was some implementation-dependant out-of-band data
mechinism that had a portible interface available on all platforms, that
would be great!
That's what some newer file systems allow to achieve: green bits. On
*nixish systems each file has a "contents", and several additional
bits (which are not intermixed with context in any way), like
timestamps and permission bits. "Green bits" are additional arbitrary
bits of data which you may associate to a file, but which do not show
in "contents" (there is a separate API to access them).
Say, on HPFS you can associate an arbitrary hash to an arbitrary file
(similarly with FAT-under-OS/2). I think DGUX has something similar
in its file systems.
Ilya
