Re: Detecting attachment types by file extension.. how to change exmh's behaviour?

  | Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 08:55:39 -0500
  | From: Stephen Wilcoxon <[email protected]>
  | 
  | I don't have much experience with MacOS-X but it looks to me like the
  | problem is with /usr/bin/open and not with exmh.  I've never heard of a
  | unix command that operates based on file extensions before (rather than
  | determining type based on file contents (eg file)).
  | 
  | If open is a shell script, I'd suggest rewriting it.  If it is a binary,
  | I'd suggest bypassing it and calling the appropriate application
  | directly in the mailcap (eg "audio/*; /usr/bin/musicprog %s"). 
  | 
  | -----Original Message-----
  | From: [email protected] (On Behalf Of Marc Baaden)
  | Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 8:49 AM
  | Subject: Detecting attachment types by file extension.. how to change exmh's behaviour?
  |[ ... ] the problem is that exmh saves its attachment with the extension
  | .exmh which is a problem for [ /usr/bin/open ]. As an example, I have a
  | audio WAV file attachment which does not open [ as something.exmh ]
  | but which opens properly if I rename it to something.wav. Furthermore I
  | see that the filename is declared as whatever.wav in the actual mail
  | message. 
  | 
  | So I wonder whether I couldnt' get exmh to just use that filename as
  | temporary file, as then the open command would work fine on it.

 I don't know if it is possible to get EXMH to use the
 filename in the e-mail attachment or not, but I would
 Strongly Advise against it:  1st, either by accident
 or deliberately, the name in the attachment may name
 a file you care about (e.g., /etc/password or .profile
 or whatever);  and 2nd, not all attachments specify a
 filename (it's optional).

 Stephen is right; you should be using the type of the
 file's contents, as determined by the file(1) command
 (nominally), to decide what to do next.  If you are
 using GNU `file', the `-i' (alias `--mime') option is
 very very useful here.

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
▶ ▶  I AM CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR A JOB!  ◀ ◀ | Brian Foster
Experienced (>25 yrs) software engineer:    |        Montpellier, FRANCE
 • Unix, Linux, embedded, design-for-test;  | Stop E$$o (ExxonMobile)!
 • Software/hardware co-design, debugging;  |     http:/www.stopesso.com
 • Kernels, drivers, filesystems, &tc;    Résumé (CV) & contact details:
 • IDL, automated testing, process, &tc.   http://www.blf.utvinternet.ie