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File::MimeInfo(3pm)   User Contributed Perl Documentation  File::MimeInfo(3pm)

NAME
       File::MimeInfo - Determine file type from the file name

SYNOPSIS
         use File::MimeInfo;
         my $mime_type = mimetype($file);
         my $mime_type2 = mimetype('test.png');

DESCRIPTION
       This module can be used to determine the mime type of a file. It tries
       to implement the freedesktop specification for a shared MIME database.

       For this module shared-mime-info-spec 0.13 was used.

       This package only uses the globs file. No real magic checking is used.
       The File::MimeInfo::Magic package is provided for magic typing.

       If you want to determine the mimetype of data in a memory buffer you
       should use File::MimeInfo::Magic in combination with IO::Scalar.

       This module loads the various data files when needed. If you want to
       hash data earlier see the "rehash" methods below.

EXPORT
       The method "mimetype" is exported by default.  The methods "inodetype",
       "globs", "extensions", "describe", "mimetype_canon" and "mimetype_isa"
       can be exported on demand.

METHODS
       "new()"
           Simple constructor to allow Object Oriented use of this module.  If
           you want to use this, include the package as "use File::MimeInfo
           ();" to avoid importing sub "mimetype()".

       "mimetype($file)"
           Returns a mimetype string for $file, returns undef on failure.

           This method bundles "inodetype" and "globs".

           If these methods are unsuccessful the file is read and the mimetype
           defaults to 'text/plain' or to 'application/octet-stream' when the
           first ten chars of the file match ascii control chars (white spaces
           excluded).  If the file doesn't exist or isn't readable "undef" is
           returned.

       "inodetype($file)"
           Returns a mimetype in the 'inode' namespace or undef when the file
           is actually a normal file.

       "globs($file)"
           Returns a mimetype string for $file based on the filename and
           filename extensions.  Returns undef on failure. The file doesn't
           need to exist.

           Behaviour in list context (wantarray) is unspecified and will
           change in future releases.

       "default($file)"
           This method decides whether a file is binary or plain text by
           looking at the first few bytes in the file. Used to decide between
           "text/plain" and "application/octet-stream" if all other methods
           have failed.

           The spec states that we should check for the ascii control chars
           and let higher bit chars pass to allow utf8. We try to be more
           intelligent using perl utf8 support.

       "extensions($mimetype)"
           In list context, returns the list of filename extensions that map
           to the given mimetype.  In scalar context, returns the first
           extension that is found in the database for this mimetype.

       "describe($mimetype, $lang)"
           Returns a description of this mimetype as supplied by the mime info
           database.  You can specify a language with the optional parameter
           $lang, this should be the two letter language code used in the xml
           files. Also you can set the global variable $File::MimeInfo::LANG
           to specify a language.

           This method returns undef when no xml file was found (i.e. the
           mimetype doesn't exist in the database). It returns an empty string
           when the xml file doesn't contain a description in the language you
           specified.

           Currently no real xml parsing is done, it trusts the xml files are
           nicely formatted.

       "mimetype_canon($mimetype)"
           Returns the canonical mimetype for a given mimetype.  Deprecated
           mimetypes are typically aliased to their canonical variants.  This
           method only checks aliases, doesn't check whether the mimetype
           exists.

           Use this method as a filter when you take a mimetype as input.

       "mimetype_isa($mimetype)"
       "mimetype_isa($mimetype, $mimetype)"
           When give only one argument this method returns a list with
           mimetypes that are parent classes for this mimetype.

           When given two arguments returns true if the second mimetype is a
           parent class of the first one.

           This method checks the subclasses table and applies a few rules for
           implicit subclasses.

       "has_mimeinfo_database()"
           Check if there are mimeinfo database files available; returns 1 on
           success.  If you don't have the shared-mime-info package installed
           or not in the PATH or @File::MimeInfo::DIRS does not contain
           database directories, you will not get the successful reply.

           New in version 0.30.

       "rehash()"
           Rehash the data files. Glob information is preparsed when this
           method is called.

           If you want to by-pass the XDG basedir system you can specify your
           database directories by setting @File::MimeInfo::DIRS. But normally
           it is better to change the XDG basedir environment variables.

       "rehash_aliases()"
           Rehashes the mime/aliases files.

       "rehash_subclasses()"
           Rehashes the mime/subclasses files.

DIAGNOSTICS
       This module throws an exception when it can't find any data files, when
       it can't open a data file it found for reading or when a subroutine
       doesn't get enough arguments.  In the first case you either don't have
       the freedesktop mime info database installed, or your environment
       variables point to the wrong places, in the second case you have the
       database installed, but it is broken (the mime info database should
       logically be world readable).

TODO
       Make an option for using some caching mechanism to reduce init time.

       Make "describe()" use real xml parsing ?

LIMITATIONS
       Perl versions prior to 5.8.0 do not have the ':utf8' IO Layer, thus for
       the default method and for reading the xml files utf8 is not supported
       for these versions.

       Since it is not possible to distinguish between encoding types (utf8,
       latin1, latin2 etc.)  in a straightforward manner only utf8 is
       supported (because the spec recommends this).

       This module does not yet check extended attributes for a mimetype.
       Patches for this are very welcome.

       This module uses the FreeDesktop.org shared mime info database. On your
       desktop linux this is typically pre-installed so it's not a problem. On
       your server you can install the shared-mime-info package via apt or dnf
       or apk or whatnot.

       To install on macOS, you can install it like this:

           brew install shared-mime-info

AUTHOR
       Jaap Karssenberg <pardus@cpan.org> Maintained by Michiel Beijen
       <mb@x14.nl>

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 itself.

SEE ALSO
       File::BaseDir, File::MimeInfo::Magic, File::MimeInfo::Applications,
       File::MimeInfo::Rox

       related CPAN modules
           File::MMagic

       freedesktop specifications used
           <http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec>,
           <http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/basedir-spec>,
           <http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec>

       freedesktop mime database
           <http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/shared-mime-info>

perl v5.34.0                      2022-07-15               File::MimeInfo(3pm)

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