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file - determine file type.

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Consider this scenario: $ file a b c a: empty b: cannot open `b' (No such file or directory) c: cannot open `c' (No such file or directory) $ file b/c b/c: cannot open `b/c' (No such file or ...
pmor's user avatar
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The file -b <path> command seems useful for scripting (filtering file types, not necessarily by extension). But for that you have to know the actual string output for your target filetype(s) If ...
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Why does file xxx.src lead to cannot open `xxx.src' (No such file or directory) but has an exit status of 0 (success)? $ file xxx.src ; echo $? xxx.src: cannot open `xxx.src' (No such file or ...
pmor's user avatar
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I have a number of files (Jupyter notebooks, .ipynb) which are text files. All of these contain some LaTeX markup. But when I run file, I get: $ file nb_* nb_1.ipynb: ASCII text nb_2....
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A year ago I've used a more advanced version of file, I think this was on a Debian based linux and it was in their main repository. Compared to file, it would show some more information such as if ...
Isa's user avatar
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Consider the shared object dependencies of /bin/bash, which includes /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (dynamic linker/loader): ldd /bin/bash linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fffd0887000) libtinfo.so.6 =>...
Shuzheng's user avatar
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I'm using cx-Freeze to freeze a PyQt5 application. On my Jenkins slave running OSX 10.13, when cx-Freeze is using the file command to check the type of the files, it classifies a .pyc file (python ...
MindObjects223's user avatar
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I'm trying to understand the output of the file command when used on an INI-file. I create a file like this ("DOS" line endings are crucial, otherwise it is recognized as an ascii text file) ;Trying ...
johnny's user avatar
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I know I can find files using find: find . -type f -name 'sunrise'. Example result: ./sunrise ./events/sunrise ./astronomy/sunrise ./schedule/sunrise I also know that I can determine the file type of ...
Flux's user avatar
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When I try to create a C/C++ source file touch test.cpp Usually it will generate a file which type is C source code file. But today I got a plain text file. And I write a simple program in it like: #...
pangbryant's user avatar
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I used the file command on a c# source file, and linux thought it was a c++ file. What is the reason for this?
J. Czekaj's user avatar
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So I have a directory where I wish to open the only file in that directory that is human readable. I use file * to print the type of each file, and one file shows as ASCII-text. How can I redirect ...
firedrillsergeant's user avatar
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I would like to write the format of a drawing with "file drawing" Files start like: CAD A1 mm (Blank after A1) or: CAD A00 m (Blank after "m") I tried somethings like in the file magic: 0 ...
Horst's user avatar
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The file command (Debian Jessie) in does not recognize some Perl modules. For example: /usr/share/perl5/XML/SAX.pm (from libxml-sax-perl) gives: $ file /usr/share/perl5/XML/SAX.pm /usr/share/perl5/...
Wybo Dekker's user avatar
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I am getting different output while using file command in AIX vs Linux. File contents : D|P_APAC_PH_PHINGTF00240_20150731031225|APAC|PH|NN (L) SPEK DYWIDENDOWYCH RYNKÓW WSCHODZCYCH||4|20130308|PHN|...
GAURAV MAHAJAN's user avatar
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I'm trying to use /usr/bin/file to detect file types in a program but also would like it to report if the file does not exist. However the command always returns exit status 0. Besides grepping the ...
chakrit's user avatar
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I performed a file-command on all elements in my Desktop directory: ~/Desktop > file * then I grepped all the lines who have the string "image" in the description: ~/Desktop > file * | grep "...
Abdul Al Hazred's user avatar
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The man pages of the file command/libmagic are talking about a datatype called "ID3 length". The only explanation i found was: A 32-bit ID3 length So what is this for a type ? Is it related to the ...
SleepProgger's user avatar
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I am currently writing a parser for the libmagic database (used by the file command) and i don't found any information on the 'use' and 'clear' type (second column in the magic file). Can someone ...
SleepProgger's user avatar
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8 votes
2 answers
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I'm running file against a wallet.dat file (A file that Bitcoin keeps its private keys in) and even though there doesn't seem to be any identifiable header or string, file can still tell that it's a ...
Nick ODell's user avatar
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I am writing a menu based bash script, one of the menu options is to send an email with a text file attachment. I am having trouble with checking if my file is a text file. Here is what I have: ...
Powea's user avatar
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I have been trying to list files in directory using ls and passing it different options. Does it have the ability to list types of files as well ? I want to know which ones are executable , ...
Ahmed's user avatar
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3 answers
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I am searching for a method to find only JPEG files/ With my limited knowledge of Linux I came to this point: list all paths that exist from root below with find / pipe the result into next command ...
Abdul Al Hazred's user avatar
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9 votes
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7k views

Why doesn't the following return text/csv? $ echo 'foo,bar\nbaz,quux' > temp.csv;file -b --mime temp.csv text/plain; charset=us-ascii I used this example for extra clarity but I'm also ...
Jason Swett's user avatar
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There is a bash command file(1) which outputs a file's contents type according to the matching pattern definitions in the /etc/magic and /usr/share/misc/magic. Is there a way to use these pattern ...
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I want to do a loop for all the images in a directory. The images doesn't have extension so I have to read the first bytes of the image to know its type. The loop should end up being something like. ...
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1 vote
1 answer
13k views

I am trying to make a check to see if the file being attached to the email is a text file, and if it is not it returns an error. However during testing, I provide a valid text.txt and it returns the "...
Duncan's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
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I have an image archive I keep up. Sometimes, the sites I pull them from reformat the file while keeping the extension the same, most often making PNG images into JPG's that are still named ".png". ...
Aescula's user avatar
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1 answer
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My question follows that one: file(1) and magic(5) : describing other formats . I want to describe a FASTA sequence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASTA_format) It could be a DNA sequence (with only ...
Pierre's user avatar
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Can I use file and magic ( http://linux.die.net/man/5/magic ) to override the description of some other known formats ? for example, I would like to describe the following formats: BED: http://...
Pierre's user avatar
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1 vote
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Please let me know if below two statements are correct or not: Folder /usr/share/mime/magic has a database/table that will give me what are the current possible file formats (outputs that I can get ...
user2543622's user avatar
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22 votes
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I need to recognize type of data contained in random files. I am new to Linux. I am planning to use the file command to understand what type of data a file has. I tried that command and got the ...
user2543622's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
524 views

This is a followup to Normal looking text file, detected by file as ASCII Pascal program text It seems file can't be trusted all the time. It seems possible that a particular file may be detected ...
user13107's user avatar
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20 votes
2 answers
4k views

I was reading about the file command and I came across something I don't quite understand: file is designed to determine the kind of file being queried.... file accomplishes this by performing ...
Abdennour TOUMI's user avatar
  • 922
1 vote
2 answers
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I need to define mime type of various video files and I got a problem with .m2ts files. Before I stumbled on this, I used file utility with -iL keys and parsed the output with sed. Today I found that ...
tijagi's user avatar
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14 votes
2 answers
852 views

While I'm reading file(1) I noticed this in the man page (emphasis mine): When adding local definitions to /etc/magic, make sure to preserve these keywords. Users depend on knowing that all the ...
yegle's user avatar
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10 votes
3 answers
9k views

I am looking for a way to determine file types in a folder with thousands of files. File names do not reveal much and have no extension, but are different types. Specifically, I am trying to determine ...
dmars's user avatar
  • 113
2 votes
1 answer
3k views

I have a folder (the iPhone Backup) with various files without a suffix. I want to run a batch process over these files, which detects each file's file-type (with the help of the magic-file database (...
porg's user avatar
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5 votes
2 answers
2k views

Sometimes it seems that the standard file command (5.04 on my Ubuntu system) is not sophisticated enough (or I am just using it wrong, which could well be). For example when I run it on an .exe file, ...
maxschlepzig's user avatar
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4 votes
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Searching, googling, I could not find any information about file types recognized by file. For example, an *.mp4 file is identified as "ISO Media" (while being able to play with VLC normally). This ...
Alois Mahdal's user avatar
  • 4,598
6 votes
1 answer
364 views

What could cause file(1) command to output application/msword application/msword (yes, twice in a row) as the mime type for some of the .doc files? Normally it prints just application/msword. If run ...
alex's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
430 views

I would like to create a file that just contains a binary number. I think that touch can be used to create an empty file, but is there any way I can fill it with a binary number e.g. 10 (ten)? And how ...
Jonas's user avatar
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6 votes
5 answers
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I have a list of files and I need to find all the image-files from that list. For example, if my list contained the following: pidgin.tar.gz photo01.jpg picture01 screenshot.gif invoice.pdf Then I ...
Stefan's user avatar
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