Re: Attention: /usr/share/file/magic{,.mime} removal

["Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org>]

* Daniel Baumann <daniel@debian.org> [080503 14:52]:
> file or rather libmagic1 ships its magic files in /usr/share/file/,
> namely this used to be:
>
> /usr/share/file/magic
> /usr/share/file/magic.mgc
> /usr/share/file/magic.mime
> /usr/share/file/magic.mime.mgc
>
> where as *.mgc are the binary files which are used by file/libmagic, and
> the others are the conlgomerated source files *for informational
> purposes only*. The sources have never been used by file for anything,
> and nobody shall do this either[0].

> [0] they *could* change format suddenly, only the library and its
>     bindings are safe.

And where is this documented? (It has a documentation for the format, so
I guess if that was supposed to be "writing" only, that was a canonical
place to state it).

> In unstable (and testing, soon), this has been avoided by an extra step
> of dumping a plain magic file in the old format and including the legacy
> copy of magic.mime from file version 4.23[2]. As soon as lenny is
> released, these will disappear and you're supposed to eventually convert
> your packages.

Thanks for the warning and the compaitibility wrapper. But please also
advertise that a bit wider. Just a mail to debian-devel is hardly enough
when breaking an advertised interface.

> Probably, I will also fill bug reports before lenny release to affected
> packages.

xfm is one of them. Perhaps I will find the time to file a list of
whishlist bugs to extend libmagic so it can be used instead of parsing
the files itself.

Hochachtungsvoll,
	Bernhard R. Link