mimetype

MIMETYPE(1p)          User Contributed Perl Documentation         MIMETYPE(1p)

NAME
       mimetype - Determine file type

SYNOPSIS
       mimetype [options] [-] files

DESCRIPTION
       This script tries to determine the mime type of a file using the Shared
       MIME-info database. It is intended as a kind of file(1) work-alike, but
       uses mimetypes instead of descriptions.

       If one symlinks the file command to mimetype it will behave a little
       more compatible, see "--file-compat".  Commandline options to specify
       alternative magic files are not implemented the same because of the
       conflicting data formats.  Also the wording of the descriptions will
       differ.

       For naming switches I followed the manpage of file(1) version 4.02 when
       possible. They seem to differ completely from the spec in the
       'utilities' chapter of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (POSIX).

OPTIONS
       -a, --all
           Show output of all rules that match the file.

           TODO: this method now just returns one match for each method
           (globs, magic, etc.).

       -b, --brief
           Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).

       --database=mimedir:mimedir:...
           Force the program to look in these directories for the shared mime-
           info database. The directories specified by the basedir
           specification are ignored.

       -d, --describe
           Print file descriptions instead of mime types, this is the default
           when using "--file-compat".

       -D, --debug
           Print debug information about how the mimetype was determined.

       -f namefile, --namefile=namefile
           Read the names of the files to be examined from the file 'namefile'
           (one per line) before the argument list.

       --file-compat
           Make mimetype behave a little more file(1) compatible. This is
           turned on automatically when you call mimetype by a link called
           'file'.

           A single '-' won't be considered a separator between options and
           filenames anymore, but becomes identical to "--stdin".  ( You can
           still use '--' as separator, but that is not backward compatible
           with the original file command. ) Also the default becomes to print
           descriptions instead of mimetypes.

       -F string, --separator=string
           Use string as custom separator between the file name and its
           mimetype or description, defaults to ':' .

       -h, --help
       -u, --usage
           Print a help message and exits.

       -i, --mimetype
           Use mime types, opposite to "--describe", this is the default when
           _not_ using "--file-compat".

       -L, --dereference
           Follow symbolic links.

       -l code, --language=code
           The language attribute specifies a two letter language code, this
           makes descriptions being outputted in the specified language.

       -M, --magic-only
           Do not check for extensions, globs or inode type, only look at the
           content of the file. This is particularly useful if for some reason
           you don't trust the name or the extension a file has.

       -N, --noalign
           Do not align output fields.

       --output-format
           If you want an alternative output format, you can specify a format
           string containing the following escapes:

                   %f for the filename
                   %d description
                   %m mime type

           Alignment is not available when using this, you need to post-
           process the output to do that.

       --stdin
           Determine type of content from STDIN, less powerful then normal
           file checking because it only uses magic typing. This will happen
           also if the STDIN filehandle is a pipe.

           To use this option IO::Scalar needs to be installed.

       -v, --version
           Print the version of the program and exit.

ENVIRONMENT
       XDG_DATA_HOME
       XDG_DATA_DIRS
           These variables can list base directories to search for data files.
           The shared mime-info will be expected in the "mime" sub directory
           of one of these directories. If these are not set, there will be
           searched for the following directories:

                   $HOME/.local/share/mime
                   /usr/local/share/mime
                   /usr/share/mime

           See also the "XDG Base Directory Specification"
           <http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec>

FILES
       The base dir for all data files is determined by two environment
       variables, see "ENVIRONMENT".

       BASE/mime/packages/SOURCE.xml
           All other files are compiled from these source files. To re-compile
           them use update-mime-database(1).

       BASE/mime/globs
           Compiled information about globs.

       BASE/mime/magic
           Compiled information about magic numbers.

       BASE/mime/MEDIA/SUBTYPE.xml
           Descriptions of a mimetype in multiple languages, used for the
           "--describe" switch.

DIAGNOSTICS
       If a file has an empty mimetype or an empty description, most probably
       the file doesn't exist and the given name doesn't match any globs. An
       empty description can also mean that there is no description available
       in the language you specified.

       The program exits with a non-zero exit value if either the commandline
       arguments failed, a module it depends on wasn't found or the shared
       mime-info database wasn't accessible. See File::MimeInfo for more
       details.

TODO
       The '--all' switch doesn't really show all matches, but only one per
       mime-typing method. This needs to be implemented in the modules first.

BUGS
       If you find bugs, please file them in our Github issue tracker at
       <https://github.com/mbeijen/File-MimeInfo/issues>.

       mimetype doesn't provide a switch for looking inside compressed files
       because it seems to me that this can only be done by un-compressing the
       file, something that defeats the purpose. On the other hand the option
       should exist for strict compatibility with file(1). Possibly a subclass
       should be made for this one day.

AUTHOR
       Jaap Karssenberg <pardus@cpan.org> Maintained by Michiel Beijen
       <michiel.beijen@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (c) 2003, 2012 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved.  This
       program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
       under the same terms as Perl.

       This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
       WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
       MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       file(1), update-mime-database(1), File::MimeInfo(3),
       <http://freedesktop.org/Software/shared-mime-info>

perl v5.26.2                      2018-08-06                      MIMETYPE(1p)