Question

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, [e-mail], Fri Aug 08 00:46:27 2008
RusSong2.mp3 SovietMus 2/2, [e-mail], Fri Aug 08 01:46:22 2008

As it seems the structure is:

1. First “token” is a file name.

   • If the token starts with any letter but double quote, the token ends at the first space character.

   • 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)

2. Last token (end of line to the very last comma moving backwards) is a timestamp.

3. 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.

4. 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!

Answer 1

The original usage of DESCRIPT.ION was to provide longer more descriptive names to 8.3 filenames; all it had was the shortname and a longer description. As you’ve found, others have co-opted the name with varying formats and usages. Frankly speaking, I don’t think you’ll find any specific commonality among the various usages.