Re: using libmagic in Emacs?

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA>]

>>>> Would there be interest in an Emacs patch for libmagic, or is there some
>>>> obvious reason this havent been done yet? I envision this as being an
>>>> inteface with 2 implementations, a lisp fallback like today, and
>>>> libmagic if available. I did a libmagick wrapper for Ocaml using Swig
>>>> before so I have some familiarity with the API.
>>> 
>>> I think it's a good idea.  It may require some non-trivial changes on
>>> the Lisp side, since libmagic's information is not quite the same as
>>> what Emacs currently uses: we'll probably want to use libmagic to get
>>> a MIME-type and then have a table mapping mime-types to major modes or
>>> some such.
>> This development would probably have to take place in a separate
>> branch.

I don't expect it to be too intrusive, so I think it can be done on the
trunk, tho of course, each step needs to be planned with care.

> I will work in my local git repos, and publish a patch here, much like
> the imagemagick patch and the xwidget patch. I can switch to bzr
> whenever that works.

That's fine as well.

> The core libmagic lisp api should, however, be rather stand-alone and
> non-intrusive. Client code such as the image type recognition code can
> then be ported sucessively.

I think it's OK to install the code in CVS as soon as the Lisp API to
libmagic is ready.  Once that is done, we can decide which next steps
to take.


        Stefan