From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre@stockholm.ptloma.edu>
Message-Id: <200106151437.HAA12236@stockholm.ptloma.edu>
Subject: [gopher] Re: Getting file info from an URI??
In-Reply-To: <3B29D81F.654F3EA9@si.hhs.nl> from 98002519 at "Jun 15,
 1 11:40:47 am"
To: gopher@complete.org
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 07:37:50 -0700 (PDT)
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> Now the Gopher standard writes: "[t]he selector string should mean
> nothing to the client software; it should never be modified by the
> client." Now this implies three things: first, one _cannot_ determine a
> file type by looking at the format of an URI.

Well, this isn't *really* true. The first character is always the item type.
Some gophers like URLs in this form

gopher://x.y.invalid/11/something

and others (like Bucktooth) don't need it twice,

gopher://bucktooth.y.invalid/1/something

but you can always make some guesses from that leading first character and
except for the I item type which is usually but not always image/jpeg most
of the others match up fine with a single MIME type. In fact, in the gopher
browser I'm working on for the C64, it turns item types back into MIME
types internally so the same handlers can do the same operations.

> Second, one _cannot_
> assume that a Gopher selector is seperated by slashes.

True; a Mac HFS gopher server, of which there are some, uses ":".

> And third, even
> if one could do just that, one _cannot_ assume that a "parent directory"
> lists the child.

Probably not.

> 1) Use the Gopher+ "!" (information) selector feature
>    Problem: requires Gopher+. Can one assume Gopher+ nowadays?
>    Or are there still many "non-plus" Gopher servers around?
>    Please comment on this.

No, there are many "G-" servers, including mine.

-- 
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
 Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser@stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Why, I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse! -- Groucho Marx -------------------