Re: SSD TBW

On 8/23/2026 9:04 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:37:07 -0700, Don Y wrote:
> 
>> In UNIX, you only have the file name to rely on -- there is no other
>> metadata available to an application/system that wants to ascertain
>> the nature of the file/object that it is being asked to process.
> 
> This is why you have “magic numbers” -- clues in the initial part of
> the file.

They are only present in some filetypes.  E.g., others get lumped in
a broad category:  data, ASCII text, etc.

>> In CVS, "wrappers" lets you associate "file types" with specific
>> handling options.
> 
> This is a CVS thing, not a Unix thing. Git has something probably more
> advanced <https://git-scm.com/docs/gitattributes>.

"wrappers" exists as a convenience to avoid having to individually
tag each version controlled file with information about how they
should be handled.  E.g., newline conversion, keyword expansion,
which bit of code to use to perform the comparison, how merge
should be handled, etc.

If careful, you can let *it* do the work instead of having to manually
tag potentially thousands of files in a "module".

If UNIX had "file type" metadata, then you could just map that to
the tagging (and processing) requirements instead of relying on consistency
in file naming as a hack.