Date   : Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:45:32 +0200
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: .basic file type, comments please...

On 28/07/2010 02:01, J.G.Harston wrote:

>> The pain, and this would affect RISC OS too, is when different,
>> incompatible, files are given the same extension, hence my use of
>> ".basic". Probably it should be ".bbcbasic" to further distinguish!

> But you've been talking about /tokenised/ BBC BASIC. "." is the
> extension for Acorn tokenised BBC BASIC. ".bas" is the extension
> for one particular type of text file.

I'm confused. I have been talking about tokenised BASIC from the start, 
although, granted, I referred to it by way of "BASIC-to-text filter", 
but that alone should have given a clue that it wasn't textual.

I don't use .bas; and I apologise if I would appear to imply that .bas 
refers to a multitude of incompatible binary-based and text-based 
sources... but that's the truth of the mess. Another reason why I chose 
to use ".basic", so I *could* hang an action off of it unique to my 
filter. Or maybe Brandy...
Don't ask. As I previously mentioned, there are plenty of example .bas 
files for seeing how other people have achieved certain things. 
Unfortunately of the ones I've downloaded, a good third are NOT text.

I also apologise for missing, earlier, you saying "." was the Acorn 
BASIC file extension. I actually thought at first it was some sort of 
typo until I realised I think you're trying to tell me there IS no 
filetype. No type? No actions? Whoo. Useful...


Well, there does not seem to be any official .basic filetype:
   http://www.fileinfo.com/list/b
   http://filext.com/alphalist.php?extstart=^B
 
http://www.file-extensions.org/search/extensions/search/ba/sortBy/extension/order/asc/page/2

Therefore, I nominate ".basic" to be Acorn tokenised BASIC (nominally of 
RISC OS pedigree, but that's a superset of earlier versions).


Are readers here agreeable to this? If so, I will contact the 
aforementioned lists to have it added as a definition.


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...