[ntp:hackers] [Fwd: Re: Quote for No Product selected! from Hal Dell (hdell at epodworks.net)]

Martin Burnicki martin.burnicki at meinberg.de
Tue Sep 23 09:32:18 UTC 2008


Hi all,

first I'd like to apologize. Should have changed the subject to
something meaningful for the hackers list.

Harlan Stenn wrote:
> Martin,
> 
> Do you have the time/interest to open a bugzilla item for this and code
> up a patch?

Yep, if we agree on a way how to implement this (i.e. which file
extension to use). I'm still pretty busy for a few days, so this may be
delayed until I have a bit more time.

David J. Taylor wrote:
> Eminently sensible suggestion to me, Martin. Could also use .log as 
> the extension, or even .ntp_log.

Todd S. Glassey wrote:
> Only by assigning that extension to the TEXT EDITOR or WORDPAD one would 
> think.

Steve Kostecke wrote:
> Add the *.txt extension for Windows.
> 
> Don't break things for the rest of us.

Of course things will be left unchanged for non-Windows targets.

So the basic question is whether we should simply use the .txt extension
(which is also my preferred solution), or use an individual extension
like .ntp_log or so.

If we use the .txt extension then these files will automatically be
opend by the preferred text editor, e.g. notepad. Since the files are
indeed just another set of text files this should be fine.
Resulting filenames would look like e.g.: loopstats.20080923.txt

If we use an extension like .ntp_log then we must register a default
application for these file types. Of course this can simply be done by
the installer. However, what is the benefit of using an individual
application?

There would be a benefit if we had an individual application which could
be started to read and display those log files. However, I'm not aware
of any. In most cases you just want to have a quick look using a text
editor.

BTW, should the new extension also be appended to the current log files,
e.g. loopstats.txt or loopstats.ntp_log rather than just loopstats?

Another question is whether the change (i.e. different file naming
convention under Windows) can and will be picked up for Dave's HTML
docs. Otherwise this will be a new source of confusion in the NG / the
questions@ list.

Danny Mayer wrote:
> Instead of patching just one type of output, you need to take a look
> at all such similar files and come up with a common solution.

Yes, of course.

> Personally I find file extensions as dates to be a bit strange since
> a type should be a metadescription of the contents, like .c is for a
> C programming language file. However, any consistent solution would
> be good.

Agreed.

Martin
-- 
Martin Burnicki

Meinberg Funkuhren
Bad Pyrmont
Germany


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