README
1This is magicfilter 2.3
2
3It's somewhat different from magicfilter 1.2:
4
5 * the printer definition file format has changed; it is now a simple
6 m4 macro file that passes define()'s in to magicfilter.
7 * the code uses libmagic (either the one in recent versions of
8 file(1) or a homemade clone of it in the copy of file that's
9 included in the sources) to do pattern matching instead of
10 hand-identifying file types.
11 * system() is no longer used to execute filters and pipes; they are now
12 directly execvp'ed to cut down on the number of processes
13 magicfilter launches. This means that environment variables
14 are no longer substituted, except for the special case of single
15 arguments named $FILE, which, if they are arguments to fpipe and
16 ffilters, will be replaced with the name of the scratchfile created
17 for the pipe. If this is a major problem, pester me and I'll think
18 about putting system() back in.
19 * all new processes are children of magicfilter, instead of some being
20 punted off into their own little groups.
21 * reject doesn't do mail notifications yet.
22
23
24Building magicfilter
25
26 magicfilter 2.3 doesn't use gnu autoconf any more, because gnu autoconf
27 requires gnu m4 and I don't have that on Mastodon. Instead, I've written
28 my own little replacement called configure.sh, which works somewhat the
29 same as the gnu configure script:
30
31 I configure magicfilter via:
32
33 CC="cc -baout -m386" CFLAGS="-O2" ./configure.sh --prefix=/usr
34
35 ./configure.sh --help gives a listing of the options it currently
36 accepts; most are similar to the gnu autoconf ones, except --path,
37 which gives configure a path so it will look for programs in places
38 other than the default /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin path.
39
40
41Copyrights
42
43 libfile is made from the file(1) program, and carries the same
44 BSD-style copyright.
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46 magicfilter itself ended up being completely rewritten, and now
47 carries a BSD-style copyright.
48
49 The manual pages were written by hpa, and thus carry the same
50 copyright -- the GNU GPL -- as magicfilter 1.2 does.
51
52 The filters were written by hpa, et alii, then trimmed fairly
53 drastically for magicfilter 2. They are public domain.
54
55
56
57-david parsons (orc@pell.chi.il.us)
58