[OT] File type on UNIX

KennyTM~ kennytm at gmail.com
Thu Sep 16 14:26:26 PDT 2010


On Sep 17, 10 02:26, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:
> Jérôme M. Berger wrote:
>> KennyTM~ wrote:
>>> On Sep 16, 10 04:35, "Jérôme M. Berger" wrote:
>>>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>>> I didn't think unix file systems had a concept of mime type.
>>>>>
>>>>      It doesn't, but Unix tools use the file contents to determine the
>>>> mime type and then choose the app associated to the mime type.
>>>>
>>>>          Jerome
>>> Please don't confuse Unix with a distro.
>>
>> 	Which distro? I used the terms "Unix tools" because it transcends
>> distributions and Unices. It is as true on Ubuntu as on *BSD or
>> Solaris...
>>
>> 		Jerome
> BTW: http://www.darwinsys.com/file/
> <quote>
> Unlike most GUI systems, command-line UNIX systems - with this
> program leading the charge - don't rely on filename extentions to
> tell you the type of a file, but look at the file's actual contents.
> </quote>
>
> 	They say "UNIX systems", they don't say "Ubuntu" (which I don't use
> anyway).
>
> 		Jerome

This describes the file(1) command, which the job is to inspect the file 
content and conclude what kind of file it actually is.

But this is just one particular UNIX command. The command line interface 
in general does not care about the type of a regular file. This is 
needed in the GUI, but it is outside of the common parts of UNIX. There 
is no rule saying that a file manager must use file(1) or MIME type or 
extensions to determine the file type.



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