From: Darrel Hankerson Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: The unix 'file' utility Date: 14 Jan 1997 18:38:19 -0600 Organization: Auburn University Usenet Server Lines: 37 Sender: hankedr AT manatee DOT dms DOT auburn DOT edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: manatee.dms.auburn.edu CC: davep AT hagbard DOT demon DOT co DOT uk To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Dave Pearson writes: > These days, thanks to DJGPP and the port of the GNU utils that have > been done with it, I've managed to do away with just about every 16bit > clone Unix command. Just about everything is now 32bit and also > supports long filenames under Win95. > > However, one that is still kicking around is the 'file' command. So, I > was wondering, has anyone ported this using DJGPP? The GNUish project contains 16- and 32- bit ports of Darwin's `file' to OS/2 and DOS. The 32bit port is for emx, but perhaps it will compile easily with djgpp. One downside is that this port is a few years old. At the time, Darwin was passing control on to new developers, and there was no interest in moving OS/2 and DOS changes into the main sources (perhaps the situation has changed--I do not know). Porting `file' was not difficult, but some work was needed to replace fork(), etc. Also, some OS/2-specific code was added. One weakness in the port that I did concerns the "unwinding" of compressed files: I used a temporary hack to suppress pipe errors, and never got back to clean it up. If you work on file, perhaps you would consider coordinating changes for djgpp, emx, and msc, so that all OS/2 and DOS users benefit. I'm willing to contribute testing and patches for emx and msc for OS/2 and DOS. (`file' attempts to determine the kind of file using built-in tests and a separate "magic" file. A port for OS/2 and DOS can be found in the GNUish project, http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/. Documentation on GNUish appears in gnuish.htm and gnuish.inf.) -- --Darrel Hankerson hankedr AT mail DOT auburn DOT edu