RE: HTML or XHTML - why do you use it?

I'm curious... how does the OS determine which program to open the file with
if there is no extension?  For example, if I have three files:

textfile
htmlfile
binaryfile

how does the OS know that I want to open textfile with a word processor,
htmlfile with a user agent, and binaryfile with some other associated
program?

Regards,
Peter




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Boris Zbarsky [mailto:bzbarsky@MIT.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 07, 2003 3:09 PM
> To: Peter Foti (PeterF)
> Cc: 'www-html@w3.org'
> Subject: Re: HTML or XHTML - why do you use it?
> 
> 
> > Yes, I was referring to Windows (or more precisely, GUI 
> OSes where you would
> > open a file by (double)clicking the icon of the file).  
> Hadn't really
> > thought about purely text-based OSes.
> 
> BeOS is a GUI OS on which the file type has nothing to do 
> with the extension.
> On any modern Unix you open files by double-clicking them in your file
> manager.  That does not make the type depend on the extension.
> 
> The list goes on (need I mention MacOS 9, where the type is 
> only very loosely
> dependent on the extension, if at all?).
> 
> Of course MacOS 9 is a purely text-based OS, so we don't have 
> to worry about
> it.
> 
> Boris
> -- 
> If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but
> garbage.  But this garbage, having passed through a
> very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none
> dare criticize it.
>

Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2003 16:01:10 UTC