file/MAINT

$Id: MAINT,v 1.7 2006/06/01 18:19:41 ian Exp $

Maintenance notes:

I am continuing to maintain the file command. I welcome your help,
but to make my life easier I'd like to request the following:

- Don't change the version numbers!

If your changes are extensive, I will have to work hard to 
integrate them into my version.  If you check it into SCCS locally,
the version numbers will likely be kept. IF you check it into RCS
or CVS locally, please use -k to keep the version numbers, and
please use branch deltas (1.21.1, 1.21.2, ...).  If you don't do
this, I will likely be unable to use your changes; life's just too
short.

- Do not distribute changed versions.

People trying to be helpful occasionally put up their hacked versions
of the file command for anonymous FTP, and people all over the
world get copies of the hacked versions.  Within a day or two I am
getting email from around the world asking me why "my" file command
won't compile!!! Needless to say this detracts from the limited
time I have available to work on the actual software. Therefore I
ask you again to please NOT distribute your changed version. If
you need to make changes, please add a patch file next to the
distribution tar, and a README file that clearly explains what you
are trying to fix.

Thank you for your assistance and cooperation.

Code Overview

This is a rough idea of the control flow from the main program:

file.c	main()
file.c	process (called for each file)
		printf file name
magic.c		magic_file()
fsmagic.c		file_fsmagic()
				(handles statbuf modes for DEV)
			(handles statbuf modes for executable &c.
			reads data from file.
funcs.c:		file_buffer()
compress.c			file_zmagic()
is_tar.c			file_is_tar()
softmagic.c			file_softmagic()
						match() - looks for match against main magic database
ascmagic.c			file_ascmagic()
readelf.c		file_tryelf()
				"unknown"

Christos Zoulas
christos@astron.com