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Type modifiers

Some GN types may have modifiers appended to them within the menu file in order to provide the server with extra information. Not all type modifiers are valid for all types. The modifiers fall into three categories of functionality, discussed below.

The Z suffix is used to indicate compressed files in UNIX compress and gzip formats. The server uncompresses the file contents before delivery. The Z suffix may only be appended to types 0, 4, 5, 9, s and I, that is, the various types of text and binary files. Compressed files are often allocated a second menu item (of type 9) to allow for their delivery in compressed form as binary files.

The h suffix permits the appropriate version of an item to be delivered according to the kind of request - plain text for Gopher and HTML for HTTP. This suffix is only appropriate for types 0 (text file) and 1 (menu). For text files, the GN server looks for a filename with a .html extension for HTTP requests, and for a filename with a .txt extension or without an extension for Gopher requests. For menu items, the server looks for a directory with the specified name for Gopher requests, and for a file with the specified name but with a .html extension for HTTP requests.

Type 7 indicates a search item. Various type of searches are supported, and are indicated by the suffixes c, g, m and w. These are discussed below in the section `Search items within menus'.

Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.