Re: [Libguestfs] [PATCH] guestfs_file_arch command

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 01:23:07PM +0100, Matthew Booth wrote: As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), libmagic is just a programmatic way to use file(1), which we already expose. The problems with file are: (a) Requires a lot of further parsing to decode what file means, eg: $ file /bin/ls /bin/ls: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, stripped ==> "x86-64" (b) Can't look inside anything, specifically initrd files. I think the serious alternative would be to do all of this logic on the host side, eg. in Lib.pm or in a 'virt-arch' utility: http://git.et.redhat.com/?p=libguestfs.git;a=blob;f=TODO;h=291d220ae03fc5... This would make it easier to extend in future, since writing parsing code in Perl is infinitely easier than writing it in C. Rich. -- Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat http://et.redhat.com/~rjones virt-df lists disk usage of guests without needing to install any software inside the virtual machine. Supports Linux and Windows. http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/virt-df/