illumos gate

Which compression formats does "-z" recognize ?

from gnu version:
"gzip", "-cdq" /* compressed /
"uncompress", "-c" / compressed /
"gzip", "-cdq" / gzipped /
"gzip", "-cdq" / frozen /
"gzip", "-cdq" / SCO LZH /
"gzip", "-cdq" / packed /
"gzip", "-cdq" / pkzipped, /
"bzip2", "-cd" / bzip2-ed /
"lzip", "-cdq"
"xz", "-cd" / XZ Utils */

I'm not sure why you are referring to file from ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/ as "gnu version", it seems to have 2-clause BSD license in its source files. Anyway, couldn't this version be used instead of what we currently have, as it's standard for Linux, *BSD, other systems?

Not exactly gnu. It is available in Linux, *BSD, ..

http://www.darwinsys.com/file/ is homepage for file.

Question:
What do we want - do we want to enhance the existing /usr/bin/file+/usr/xpg4/bin/file or replace it with a new version ? The issue with picking a new version is that /etc/magic&co.'s file format will change in an incompatible way.

• Support for compressed files (as requested by this bug)
• POSIX behaviour by default (e.g. "POSIXLY_CORRECT" in GNU terms)
• Support for printing mime types
• Support for printing all matches and not only the first one
• Support for compiled /etc/magic to boost performance

Roland Mainz wrote:

Question:
What do we want - do we want to enhance the existing /usr/bin/file+/usr/xpg4/bin/file or replace it with a new version ? The issue with picking a new version is that /etc/magic&co.'s file format will change in an incompatible way.

If we pick a different version I'd like to see some stuff included:

• Support for compressed files (as requested by this bug)
• POSIX behaviour by default (e.g. "POSIXLY_CORRECT" in GNU terms)
• Support for printing mime types
• Support for printing all matches and not only the first one
• Support for compiled /etc/magic to boost performance

I've created webrev for file-5.05 from http://www.darwinsys.com/file/, having all requested features - http://darklight.org.ru/webrev/588-file/. Incompatible magic files don't seem to be a downside given all the data distributed with this version (and local changes can be easily added, if needed). I've added all source files to exceptions_lists/* not modifying original source to make future imports of newer version easier - not sure if this is correct. Another problem is manpage, not sure how it should be handled as well. I would like to hear any comments on import/Makefile/etc. Thanks.