What file extension to use?

[NicolasCARPi]

What do you think the file extension should be?

On one hand we have .eln which is unknown to the world, and makes the archive an unknow binary file. Advanced users know that they can open it as if it was any other zip, the same way one can open a .docx file. Keeping this extension might prevent users from fiddling with it, zipping it back again and we end up with an incorrect archive. The idea being that the archive should be immutable, and inspection of content by a human should only be done by devs. The end users don't really have to know what is the internal structure.

On the other hand, we have .eln.zip, the same way we have .tar.gz which is a gzipped tarball, we have a zipped eln/ro-crate. The advantages are that it makes it easy to be opened to inspect content on the desktop, because it is now obvious that it is a zip, it also means that unarchivers will be able to open it easily and OS actions (right click > unzip) will be available.

Both options are valid with their pros and cons.

[NicolasCARPi]

Pinging @bronger @CEschke @FlorianRhiem @martin-held-hereon @mikee1976 @nicobrandt @nicolejung @SteffenBrinckmann (btw you should subscribe to activity on this repo!)

[bronger]

Sorry, could not resist: https://wilson.bronger.org/12246653_789997134444585_8425954147094342405_n.jpg

[NicolasCARPi]

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

Phil Karlton

;)

[nicobrandt]

I feel like simply using .eln is clearer, as .eln.zip would imply that there is an actual .eln file inside the ZIP archive. Unless that is the idea, but then the problem is just shifted by one layer ;) I also like the arguments that you mention for using .eln more, and as long as people know it is actually a regular ZIP archive, it should be fine (many archiving tools/previewers actually don't care about the file extension anways).

Alternatively, we could also just use the regular .zip extension. Of course, this would require looking at the contents of the archive to determine whether we are dealing with an "ELN" file or not. At the same time, the file extension does not guarantee that the content is according to the standard, either.

[bronger]

Moreover, LibreOffice files or ePub documents also are ZIP, but with a simple non-ZIP file extension.

[NicolasCARPi]

Yes, yesterday I was more encline to .eln.zip but today I'm rooting for .eln!

[NicolasCARPi]

If I change my vote to .eln then it wins the poll. So let's stick with that then.

[mikee1976]

+1 :-D Viele Grüße Michael