Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!cc.tut.fi!cc.tut.fi!h112706 From: h112706@lehtori.tut.fi (Herranen Henrik) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Script bits Message-ID: Date: 13 Feb 91 10:28:20 GMT References: <18ac1a05.ARN2ae4@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au> Sender: h112706@cc.tut.fi (Herranen Henrik) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Organization: Tampere Univ. of Technology, Finland. Lines: 22 In-Reply-To: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au's message of 12 Feb 91 11:07:17 GMT In article <18ac1a05.ARN2ae4@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au> dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton) writes: Having eight bits is kinda useful, Peter. The 'Script' bit is great. Whilst having the machine check to see if a file is a script, is plain dumb. There is no reason why a binary should start with any particular sequence of characters, right? Therefore, there is no reason why some unlucky binary file could start with the text '.key', and then the script interpreter would be called instead of the program loader - which would try to 'execute' a binary. Not clever at all. From that comment I notice that you don't have the faintest idea of how the executables are stored on disk. An executable file can NEVER begin with the text .key. Executables are recognized by AmigaDOS by the fact that the first 4 bytes (or was it 8) is always the same. So, really, the script bit is unneeded. If a file is executable and does NOT start with the standard executable longword, it could have been assumed that the file is a script. -- Henrik 'Leopold' Herranen Internet: h112706@cc.tut.fi Snail Mail: TTKK/Paarakennuksen neuvonta/PL527/33101 Tampere/Finland "I don't need no arms around me, I don't need no drugs to calm me" - PF 1979