multiple mime-types for the same file?

[David Faure]

On Monday 24 May 2004 14:31, gabor wrote:
> BUT it IS a text file..
> 
> (the same applies btw. to shell scripts)
> 
> i think the problem is now clear....

And the solution too, IMHO: using mimetype inheritance to specify
that those mimetypes inherit from text/plain. I submitted a patch for it:
http://pdx.freedesktop.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=618

> 1. is it possible to assign more mime-types to the same file?
Not directly, but via inheritance.

> 2. are the mime-prefixes (application,text,image) somehow described..
> what they exactly mean?
I don't think too much semantics should be given to them. They are too
broad categories.

> 3. if there's no way to have more mime-types for a given file... what
> should  a program like the mailclient do? special-case all
> known-that-it-is-a-text-file program files?
The programs should use "does this file's mimetype inherit text/plain" logic.
(where "inherit" includes "is", of course).

-- 
David Faure, faure at kde.org, sponsored by Trolltech to work on KDE,
Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org), and KOffice (http://www.koffice.org).