There appears to be a somewhat standard "descript.ion" file in Windows programs universe which provides meta data for all/some of the files in a given directory.
I know there are various programs which write this file (example: NewsBin, UseNet downloader) and read it (Example: "FAR", a file manager mimicking old Norton Commander).
I'm writing my own file indexer, and would like to add the ability to parse and use the info from "descript.ion" files.
The problem I have is that I have not been able to find an actual spec for the file, despine much googling.
I reverse engineered it as best I could, but I'm not certain whether I captured 100% of the possible details, so I figured I'd ask SO.
Here are example lines from the file:
"Rus Song1.mp3" SovietMus 1/2, [email protected], Fri Aug 08 00:46:27 2008
RusSong2.mp3 SovietMus 2/2, [email protected], Fri Aug 08 01:46:22 2008
As it seems the structure is:
First "token" is a file name.
If the token starts with any letter but double quote, the token ends at the first
spacecharacter.If the token starts with the double quote, the end of token is the following double quote
Not sure what happens if filename contains a double quote, IIRC it's illegal in Windows filesystems, so escaping the quote may be a moot question)
Last token (end of line to the very last comma moving backwards) is a timestamp.
Second to last token (the very last comma to second-to-last comma moving backwards) is the name of the poster from the Usenet newsgroup. I'm not quite sure what happens in generic format since the only descript.ion files I saw were from NewsBin that is obviously Usenet centric.
Everything in between is a description, in NewsBin's case coming from post's subject.
QUESTIONs:
Does anyone know of a bit more official "descript.ion" file spec/documentation? (or, at elast, have your own knowledge of those files and can verify my spec)
Does anyone know of any other programs that read or write this file?
Thanks!