[e-lang] File API taming

[Bill Frantz]

ihab.awad at gmail.com on Thursday, March 19, 2009 wrote:

>It also, however, means that patterns where I am given a file and I do
>different stuff based on whether it is called "*.exe" or "*.txt" can
>no longer work as simply as before. Who does these anyway, and
>are/were they ever a good idea?

Most modern OSes do something based on some notion of file type. Generally
they associate a file with an application so double clicking the file opens
the application.

File open dialogs also allow the caller to filter on the notion of type.
This behavior could be preserved in the cases where the file open dialog
operates in a different security context than the calling application.

FWIW - Bill

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz        | Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States.
408-356-8506       | Now we can return to being a partner with the rest of
www.periwinkle.com | the world.