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

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)

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Manual: mimetype

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