Manual: 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" 

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
       .

       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  Maintained by Michiel Beijen 

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), 

perl v5.40.1						 2026-01-12						MIMETYPE(1p)