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file(1) - Linux man page
Name
file - determine file type
Synopsis
file [-bchikLNnprsvz0] [--apple] [--mime-encoding] [--mime-type] [-e testname] [
-F separator] [-f namefile] [-m magicfiles] file ...
file -C [-m magicfiles]
file [--help]
Description
This manual page documents version 5.04 of the file command.
file tests each argument in an attempt to classify it. There are three sets of t
ests, performed in this order: filesystem tests, magic tests, and language tests
. The first test that succeeds causes the file type to be printed.
The type printed will usually contain one of the words text (the file contains o
nly printing characters and a few common control characters and is probably safe
to read on an ASCII terminal), executable (the file contains the result of comp
iling a program in a form understandable to some UNIX kernel or another), or dat
a meaning anything else (data is usually 'binary' or non-printable). Exceptions
are well-known file formats (core files, tar archives) that are known to contain
binary data. When modifying magic files or the program itself, make sure to pre
serve these keywords. Users depend on knowing that all the readable files in a d
irectory have the word 'text' printed. Don't do as Berkeley did and change 'shel
l commands text' to 'shell script'.
The filesystem tests are based on examining the return from a stat(2) system cal
l. The program checks to see if the file is empty, or if it's some sort of speci
al file. Any known file types appropriate to the system you are running on (sock
ets, symbolic links, or named pipes (FIFOs) on those systems that implement them
) are intuited if they are defined in the system header file
The magic tests are used to check for files with data in particular fixed format
s. The canonical example of this is a binary executable (compiled program) a.out
file, whose format is defined in #include <a.out.h>
and possibly #include <exec.h>
in the standard include directory. These files have a 'magic number' stored in a
particular place near the beginning of the file that tells the UNIX operating s
ystem that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof.
The concept of a 'magic' has been applied by extension to data files. Any file w
ith some invariant identifier at a small fixed offset into the file can usually
be described in this way. The information identifying these files is read from t
he compiled magic file /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc, or the files in the directory
/usr/share/misc/magic if the compiled file does not exist. In addition, if $HOME
/.magic.mgc or $HOME/.magic exists, it will be used in preference to the system
magic files. If /etc/magic exists, it will be used together with other magic fil
es.
If a file does not match any of the entries in the magic file, it is examined to
see if it seems to be a text file. ASCII, ISO-8859-x, non-ISO 8-bit extended-AS
CII character sets (such as those used on Macintosh and IBM PC systems), UTF-8-e

ncoded Unicode, UTF-16-encoded Unicode, and EBCDIC character sets can be disting
uished by the different ranges and sequences of bytes that constitute printable
text in each set. If a file passes any of these tests, its character set is repo
rted. ASCII, ISO-8859-x, UTF-8, and extended-ASCII files are identified as 'text
' because they will be mostly readable on nearly any terminal; UTF-16 and EBCDIC
are only 'character data' because, while they contain text, it is text that wil
l require translation before it can be read. In addition, file will attempt to d
etermine other characteristics of text-type files. If the lines of a file are te
rminated by CR, CRLF, or NEL, instead of the Unix-standard LF, this will be repo
rted. Files that contain embedded escape sequences or overstriking will also be
identified.
Once file has determined the character set used in a text-type file, it will att
empt to determine in what language the file is written. The language tests look
for particular strings (cf. #include <names.h>
) that can appear anywhere in the first few blocks of a file. For example, the k
eyword .br indicates that the file is most likely a troff(1) input file, just as
the keyword struct indicates a C program. These tests are less reliable than th
e previous two groups, so they are performed last. The language test routines al
so test for some miscellany (such as tar(1) archives).
Any file that cannot be identified as having been written in any of the characte
r sets listed above is simply said to be 'data'.
Options
-b, --brief
Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).
-C, --compile
Write a magic.mgc output file that contains a pre-parsed version of the magic fi
le or directory.
-c, --checking-printout
Cause a checking printout of the parsed form of the magic file. This is usually
used in conjunction with the -m flag to debug a new magic file before installing
it.
-e, --exclude testname
Exclude the test named in testname from the list of tests made to determine the
file type. Valid test names are:
apptype
EMX application type (only on EMX).
text' Various types of text files (this test will try to guess the text encoding
, irrespective of the setting of the 'encoding' option).
encoding
Different text encodings for soft magic tests.
tokens' Looks for known tokens inside text files.
cdf' Prints details of Compound Document Files.
compress
Checks for, and looks inside, compressed files.
elf' Prints ELF file details.
soft' Consults magic files.

tar' Examines tar files.

-F, --separator separator
Use the specified string as the separator between the filename and the file resu
lt returned. Defaults to ':'.
-f, --files-from namefile
Read the names of the files to be examined from namefile (one per line) before t
he argument list. Either namefile or at least one filename argument must be pres
ent; to test the standard input, use '-' as a filename argument.
-h, --no-dereference
option causes symlinks not to be followed (on systems that support symbolic link
s). This is the default if the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is not defin
ed.
-i, --mime
Causes the file command to output mime type strings rather than the more traditi
onal human readable ones. Thus it may say 'text/plain; charset=us-ascii' rather
than 'ASCII text'. In order for this option to work, file changes the way it han
dles files recognized by the command itself (such as many of the text file types
, directories etc), and makes use of an alternative 'magic' file. (See the FILES
section, below).
--mime-type, --mime-encoding
Like -i, but print only the specified element(s).
-k, --keep-going
Don't stop at the first match, keep going. Subsequent matches will be have the s
tring '\012- ' prepended. (If you want a newline, see the '-r' option.)
-L, --dereference
option causes symlinks to be followed, as the like-named option in ls(1) (on sys
tems that support symbolic links). This is the default if the environment variab
le POSIXLY_CORRECT is defined.
-m, --magic-file magicfiles
Specify an alternate list of files and directories containing magic. This can be
a single item, or a colon-separated list. If a compiled magic file is found alo
ngside a file or directory, it will be used instead.
-N, --no-pad
Don't pad filenames so that they align in the output.
-n, --no-buffer
Force stdout to be flushed after checking each file. This is only useful if chec
king a list of files. It is intended to be used by programs that want filetype o
utput from a pipe.
-p, --preserve-date
On systems that support utime(2) or utimes(2), attempt to preserve the access ti
me of files analyzed, to pretend that file never read them.
-r, --raw
Don't translate unprintable characters to \ooo. Normally file translates unprint
able characters to their octal representation.
-s, --special-files
Normally, file only attempts to read and determine the type of argument files wh

ich stat(2) reports are ordinary files. This prevents problems, because reading
special files may have peculiar consequences. Specifying the -s option causes fi
le to also read argument files which are block or character special files. This
is useful for determining the filesystem types of the data in raw disk partition
s, which are block special files. This option also causes file to disregard the
file size as reported by stat(2) since on some systems it reports a zero size fo
r raw disk partitions.
-v, --version
Print the version of the program and exit.
-z, --uncompress
Try to look inside compressed files.
-0, --print0
Output a null character '\0' after the end of the filename. Nice to cut(1) the o
utput. This does not affect the separator which is still printed.
--help
Print a help message and exit.
Files
/usr/share/misc/magic.mgc
Default compiled list of magic.
/usr/share/misc/magic' Directory containing default magic files.
Environment
The environment variable MAGIC can be used to set the default magic file name. I
f that variable is set, then file will not attempt to open $HOME/.magic. file ad
ds '.mgc' to the value of this variable as appropriate. The environment variable
POSIXLY_CORRECT controls (on systems that support symbolic links), whether file
will attempt to follow symlinks or not. If set, then file follows symlink, othe
rwise it does not. This is also controlled by the -L and -h options.
See Also
magic(5), strings(1), od(1), hexdump(1,) file(1posix)
Standards Conformance
This program is believed to exceed the System V Interface Definition of FILE(CMD
), as near as one can determine from the vague language contained therein. Its b
ehavior is mostly compatible with the System V program of the same name. This ve
rsion knows more magic, however, so it will produce different (albeit more accur
ate) output in many cases.
The one significant difference between this version and System V is that this ve
rsion treats any white space as a delimiter, so that spaces in pattern strings m
ust be escaped. For example,
>10
string language impress
(imPRESS data)
in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
>10
string language\ impress
(imPRESS data)
In addition, in this version, if a pattern string contains a backslash, it must
be escaped. For example
0
string
\begindata
Andrew Toolkit document
in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
0
string
\\begindata
Andrew Toolkit document
SunOS releases 3.2 and later from Sun Microsystems include a file command derive

d from the System V one, but with some extensions. My version differs from Sun's
only in minor ways. It includes the extension of the '&' operator, used as, for
example,
>16
long&0x7fffffff >0
not stripped
Magic Directory
The magic file entries have been collected from various sources, mainly USENET,
and contributed by various authors. Christos Zoulas (address below) will collect
additional or corrected magic file entries. A consolidation of magic file entri
es will be distributed periodically.
The order of entries in the magic file is significant. Depending on what system
you are using, the order that they are put together may be incorrect. If your ol
d file command uses a magic file, keep the old magic file around for comparison
purposes (rename it to /usr/share/misc/magic.orig ).
Examples
$ file file.c file /dev/{wd0a,hda}
file.c: C program text
file:
ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV),
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped
/dev/wd0a: block special (0/0)
/dev/hda: block special (3/0)
$ file -s /dev/wd0{b,d}
/dev/wd0b: data
/dev/wd0d: x86 boot sector
$ file -s /dev/hda{,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}
/dev/hda: x86 boot sector
/dev/hda1: Linux/i386 ext2 filesystem
/dev/hda2: x86 boot sector
/dev/hda3: x86 boot sector, extended partition table
/dev/hda4: Linux/i386 ext2 filesystem
/dev/hda5: Linux/i386 swap file
/dev/hda6: Linux/i386 swap file
/dev/hda7: Linux/i386 swap file
/dev/hda8: Linux/i386 swap file
/dev/hda9: empty
/dev/hda10: empty
$ file -i file.c file /dev/{wd0a,hda}
file.c: text/x-c
file: application/x-executable
/dev/hda: application/x-not-regular-file
/dev/wd0a: application/x-not-regular-file
History
There has been a file command in every UNIX since at least Research Version 4 (m
an page dated November, 1973). The System V version introduced one significant m
ajor change: the external list of magic types. This slowed the program down slig
htly but made it a lot more flexible.
This program, based on the System V version, was written by Ian Darwin <ian@darw
insys.com> without looking at anybody else's source code.
John Gilmore revised the code extensively, making it better than the first versi
on. Geoff Collyer found several inadequacies and provided some magic file entrie

s. Contributions by the '&' operator by Rob McMahon, cudcv@warwick.ac.uk, 1989.

Guy Harris, guy@netapp.com, made many changes from 1993 to the present.
Primary development and maintenance from 1990 to the present by Christos Zoulas
(christos@astron.com).
Altered by Chris Lowth, chris@lowth.com, 2000: Handle the -i option to output mi
me type strings, using an alternative magic file and internal logic.
Altered by Eric Fischer (enf@pobox.com), July, 2000, to identify character codes
and attempt to identify the languages of non-ASCII files.
Altered by Reuben Thomas (rrt@sc3d.org), 2007 to 2008, to improve MIME support a
nd merge MIME and non-MIME magic, support directories as well as files of magic,
apply many bug fixes and improve the build system.
The list of contributors to the 'magic' directory (magic files) is too long to i
nclude here. You know who you are; thank you. Many contributors are listed in th
e source files.
Legal Notice
Copyright Ian F. Darwin, Toronto, Canada, 1986-1999. Covered by the standard Ber
keley Software Distribution copyright; see the file LEGAL.NOTICE in the source d
istribution.
The files tar.h and is_tar.c were written by John Gilmore from his public-domain
tar(1) program, and are not covered by the above license.
Bugs
There must be a better way to automate the construction of the Magic file from a
ll the glop in Magdir. What is it?
file uses several algorithms that favor speed over accuracy, thus it can be misl
ed about the contents of text files.
The support for text files (primarily for programming languages) is simplistic,
inefficient and requires recompilation to update.
The list of keywords in ascmagic probably belongs in the Magic file. This could
be done by using some keyword like '*' for the offset value.
Complain about conflicts in the magic file entries. Make a rule that the magic e
ntries sort based on file offset rather than position within the magic file?
The program should provide a way to give an estimate of 'how good' a guess is. W
e end up removing guesses (e.g. 'Fromas first 5 chars of file) because' they are
not as good as other guesses (e.g. 'Newsgroups:' versus 'Return-Path:' ). Still
, if the others don't pan out, it should be possible to use the first guess.
This manual page, and particularly this section, is too long.
Return Code
file returns 0 on success, and non-zero on error.
If the file named by the file operand does not exist, cannot be read, or the typ
e of the file named by the file operand cannot be determined, this is not be con

sidered an error that affects the exit status.

Availability
You can obtain the original author's latest version by anonymous FTP on ftp.astr
on.com in the directory /pub/file/file-X.YZ.tar.gz
BSD October 9, 2008 BSD
Referenced By
aunpack(1), disktype(1), dsniff(8), dstat(1), enconv(1), genisoimage(1), gentoo(
1), guestfish(1), guestfs(3), hivexregedit(1), libmagic(3), miff(4), mimetype(1)
, missidentify(1), mkisofs(8), pmcd(1), rpmfile(1), suffixes(7), symlink(7), typ
erules(5), unoconv(1), virt-win-reg(1)
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