[OS X TeX] First iteration of performance results

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 27 août 05 à 21:12, Steffen Wolfrum a écrit :

> It was all about the ending of tex-perf. Without any (.sh) it never  
> worked. And - I really don't know why - my version of safari 1.3  
> (OS 10.3.9) ALLWAYS saved Gerben's link as a txt file (reseting and  
> erasing the cache didn't change anything). So my first attempt was  
> to re-name the file to tex-perf.sh, but that made no difference. It  
> only worked when creating a new file and saving it originally as  
> tex-perf.sh. Well...
>
> But the only thing that really makes me wonder is, why am I the  
> only one having these troubles with that file? Is swear I never  
> changed any thing to Gerben's distro (paths, owner rights etc:), so  
> why do I not drive the same machine that you all do?

I'm not sure that will help here, but anyway: to prevent problems  
with extensions mixup, or when the Finder doesn't associate an  
extension properly with a file type and/or with an application, I  
would recommend rebuilding the Launch Services database routinely.  
That's a bit similar to rebuilding the Desktop on OS 9 and below.

Before Tiger, that meant deleting the following files, user by user,  
then restarting (or maybe just logging out/in, I didn't try):

     /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices.6B.csstore
     ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices.UserCache.csstore
     ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

With Tiger the organization and naming of these files have changed  
slightly: apart from the pref file, the cache files are now stored at  
a central repository, with names ending up with a user number:

     /Library/Caches/com.apple.LaunchServices-*.csstore
     ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Another possibility is that your shell uses some tailored  
configuration files from your user directory (like a .profile for  
bash). Is your shell bash or tcsh (that's defined in /Applications/ 
Utilities/NetInfo Manager, look at users then at your account)? Do  
you have, by any chance, a ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist? I can't see  
how these could be involved here, but who knows.

As to renaming the files in the Finder, when extensions are involved,  
never do this directly: when erasing for example an extension by  
directly selecting the name in the Finder and editing it, then the  
extension won't be actually erased, it will simply be hidden. You  
need to use the Info window (Cmd-I, or File > Get Info).

Finally, regarding Safari: if I understood things correctly, for  
standards-conforming web browsers, the action done when a file is  
opened (visualized, downloaded, etc.) in a web page is no longer  
determined by the browser (à la Internet Explorer, in which you  
define in the prefs -- or through Internet Config --, extension by  
extension, what is done with the file, which application is used);  
instead, it's determined by the configuration of the web server of  
the web site you're visiting. I don't remember whether this mechanism  
works by MIME types or not, but in any case it should not use  
extensions any longer.

That's why, for example, when you visit some web sites and click on a  
link associated with a .dmg file, the file is sometimes visualized as  
a text file in a browser window (giving only garbage) instead of  
being downloaded: the server of the site is improperly configured and  
doesn't tell the browser what a .dmg file is; in that case, the  
default interpretation of a file as text is used. That happens most  
often with .dmg files, because the .dmg format is specific to OS X  
and not widely known outside the Mac world.

Most browsers now have taken steps to move away from the (W3C)  
standard a bit in this area, by recognizing a .dmg file through its  
extension and doing what's appropriate for it, but that's not always  
the case. I think Safari does this, but I'm not sure. I remember a  
time during the evolution of Chimera/Camino, when there were  
arguments in the associated mailing list between die-hard standards  
advocates and user-oriented developers, whether this additional  
functionality should be added or not.

All this to say that, in your case, the automatic addition of the  
extension .sh to tex-perf, based on (I imagine) the first line "#!/ 
bin/sh", may as well depend on a specific interaction of the TUG web  
server and your web browser (browser, version), plus some parameters  
from your setup (the Launch Services database, and who knows what else).

So much for computer science as an exact science!

Bruno--------------------- Info ---------------------
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