File::MimeInfo(3pm)

1MimeInfo(3)           User Contributed Perl Documentation          MimeInfo(3)
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NAME

6       File::MimeInfo - Determine file type
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SYNOPSIS

9         use File::MimeInfo;
10         my $mime_type = mimetype($file);
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DESCRIPTION

13       This module can be used to determine the mime type of a file. It tries
14       to implement the freedesktop specification for a shared MIME database.
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16       For this module shared-mime-info-spec 0.13 was used.
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18       This package only uses the globs file. No real magic checking is used.
19       The File::MimeInfo::Magic package is provided for magic typing.
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21       If you want to detemine the mimetype of data in a memory buffer you
22       should use File::MimeInfo::Magic in combination with IO::Scalar.
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EXPORT

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

30       "new()"
31           Simple constructor to allow Object Oriented use of this module.  If
32           you want to use this, include the package as "use File::MimeInfo
33           ();" to avoid importing sub "mimetype()".
34
35       "mimetype($file)"
36           Returns a mimetype string for $file, returns undef on failure.
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38           This method bundles "inodetype" and "globs".
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40           If these methods are unsuccessful the file is read and the mimetype
41           defaults to 'text/plain' or to 'application/octet-stream' when the
42           first ten chars of the file match ascii control chars (white spaces
43           excluded).  If the file doesn't exist or isn't readable "undef" is
44           returned.
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46       "inodetype($file)"
47           Returns a mimetype in the 'inode' namespace or undef when the file
48           is actually a normal file.
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50       "globs($file)"
51           Returns a mimetype string for $file based on the filename and file‐
52           name extensions.  Returns undef on failure. The file doesn't need
53           to exist.
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55           Behaviour in list context (wantarray) is unspecified and will
56           change in future releases.
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58       "extensions($mimetype)"
59           In list context, returns the list of filename extensions that map
60           to the given mimetype.  In scalar context, returns the first exten‐
61           sion that is found in the database for this mimetype.
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63       "describe($mimetype, $lang)"
64           Returns a description of this mimetype as supplied by the mime info
65           database.  You can specify a language with the optional parameter
66           $lang, this should be the two letter language code used in the xml
67           files. Also you can set the global variable $File::MimeInfo::LANG
68           to specify a language.
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70           This method returns undef when no xml file was found (i.e. the
71           mimetype doesn't exist in the database). It returns an empty string
72           when the xml file doesn't contain a description in the language you
73           specified.
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75           Currently no real xml parsing is done, it trusts the xml files are
76           nicely formatted.
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78       "mimetype_canon($mimetype)"
79           Returns the canonical mimetype for a given mimetype.  Deprecated
80           mimetypes are typically aliased to their canonical variants.  This
81           method only checks aliases, doesn't check whether the mimetype
82           exists.
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84           Use this method as a filter when you take a mimetype as input.
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86       "mimetype_isa($mimetype)"
87       "mimetype_isa($mimetype, $mimetype)"
88           When give only one argument this method returns a list with mime‐
89           types that are parent classes for this mimetype.
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91           When given two arguments returns true if the second mimetype is a
92           parent class of the first one.
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94           This method checks the subclasses table and applies a few rules for
95           implicite subclasses.
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97       "rehash()"
98           Rehash the data files. Glob information is preparsed when this
99           method is called.
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101           If you want to by-pass the XDG basedir system you can specify your
102           database directories by setting @File::MimeInfo::DIRS. But normally
103           it is better to change the XDG basedir environment variables.
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105       "rehash_aliases()"
106           Rehashes the mime/aliases files.
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108       "rehash_subclasses()"
109           Rehashes the mime/subclasses files.
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DIAGNOSTICS

112       This module throws an exception when it can't find any data files, when
113       it can't open a data file it found for reading or when a subroutine
114       doesn't get enough arguments.  In the first case you either don't have
115       the freedesktop mime info database installed, or your environment vari‐
116       ables point to the wrong places, in the second case you have the data‐
117       base installed, but it is broken (the mime info database should logi‐
118       cally be world readable).
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TODO

121       Make an option for using some caching mechanism to reduce init time.
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123       Make "describe()" use real xml parsing ?
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LIMITATIONS

126       Perl versions prior to 5.8.0 do not have the ':utf8' IO Layer, thus for
127       the default method and for reading the xml files utf8 is not supported
128       for these versions.
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130       Since it is not possible to distinguish between encoding types (utf8,
131       latin1, latin2 etc.)  in a straightforward manner only utf8 is sup‐
132       ported (because the spec recommends this).
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134       This module does not yet check extended attributes for a mimetype.
135       Patches for this are very welcome.
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BUGS

138       Please mail the author when you encounter any bugs.
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AUTHOR

141       Jaap Karssenberg ⎪⎪ Pardus [Larus] <pardus@cpan.org>
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143       Copyright (c) 2003 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved.  This pro‐
144       gram is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
145       the same terms as Perl itself.
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