Re: Guessing based on file extension

[Daniel Pittman <daniel@danann.net>]

On 02 Jan 2000, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote:

> François suggested the following definition of this function:

[...]

> If the type is "application/octet-stream", then we look at the thing
> after the dot, and use that as the "real" type.
> 
> On the one hand, this is user friendly.  On the other hand, guessing
> is yucky.  

It's somewhat yucky; I can think of quite a number of file-types,
comprising most of what I get sent as attachments, that are identifiable
by extension.

> One could add a used config variable to control whether to do it or
> not, but if that defaults to nil, then that won't be very used
> friendly.

An alist of '((".pdf" "application/pdf") (".txt" "text/plain")) would be
good for this; it lets people set it to what they want (including nil)
-- but populate it with a sane set of things by default.

I would applaud it :)

        Daniel

-- 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
        -- W.B. Yeats, _The Second Coming_