Why can Answers only accept zipped .mat attachments?

I notice that I cannot attach .mat files to my Questions, unless zipped. I was just curious why we are forced to .zip them. Is it to help minimize disk consumption? Then why not request everything be zipped?

[Randy Souza]

We wanted to start with a minimal list of allowed file types, and expand the list as needed. I'll look into getting .mat added as an attachable format.

[Walter Roberson]

People will probably also be wanting to attach .fig

Answer 1

[Matt J]

I'm closing this in light of Randy's response.

Answer 2

[Jan]

Of course I cannot answer this question. I would not prefer zipped files due to security problems. Beside the zip bomb vulnerabilities, you can hide malware more easily in zip files also.

I've created a pseudo-zip file and attached it:

s = 'hello!';
save('Hello.zip', 's');

Reading it works by:

load('Hello.zip', '-mat')

Therefore I do not see a real benefit of rejecting '.mat' files.

By the way, with posting this file I agreed with the "Guidelines for Submitting Content". But this text is very hard to read. Such juristic texts are hard to follow in the mother-language already, but this forum is thought for international access. So I agreed with these guidelines, but I frankly admit, that it would take me more than an hour to understand them in detail.

Wouldn't it be necessary to post a definition or at least a link to "Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 license"? Because I find the name of the license only, I have to trust the results of my favorite internet search engine, that exactly this version of the text is shown on top, which is meant by MathWorks. Of course this is likely, but for a legal text, which tries to be bullet-proof, more clarity would be more useful.

Answer 3

[Randy Souza]

As of today (Nov 13, 2013) you can attach .fig, .mat, and .mdl files.

[Matt J]

That's great!