Manual page for FILE(1)
file - determine the type of a file by examining its contents
SYNOPSIS
file
[
-f
ffile
]
[
-cL
]
[
-m
mfile
]
filename...
DESCRIPTION
file
performs a series of tests on each
filename
in an attempt to determine
what it contains. If the contents of a file appear to be
ASCII
text,
file
examines the first 512 bytes and tries to guess its language.
file
uses the file
/etc/magic
to identify files that have some sort of
magic number,
that is, any file containing a numeric or
string constant that indicates its type.
OPTIONS
- -c
-
Check for format errors in the magic number file.
For reasons of efficiency, this validation
is not normally carried out.
No file type-checking is done under
-c.
- -f ffile
-
Get a list of filenames to identify from
ffile.
- -L
-
If a file is a symbolic link, test the file the link references
rather than the link itself.
- -m mfile
-
Use
mfile
as the name of an alternate magic number file.
EXAMPLE
This example illustrates the use of
file
on all the files in a
specific user's directory:
-
example% pwd
/usr/blort/misc
example% file *
- code:
-
mc68020 demand paged executable
- code.c:
-
c program text
- counts:
-
ascii text
- doc:
-
roff, nroff , or eqn
input text
- empty.file:
-
empty
- libz:
-
archive random library
- memos:
-
directory
- project:
-
symbolic link to
/usr/project
- script:
-
executable shell script
- titles:
-
ascii text
- s5.stuff:
-
cpio archive
- example%
-
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variables
LC_CTYPE,
LANG,
and
LC_default
control the character classification
throughout
file.
On entry to
file,
these environment variables are checked in the
following order:
LC_CTYPE,
LANG,
and
LC_default.
When a valid value is found,
remaining environment variables for character classification
are ignored.
For example, a new setting for
LANG
does not override the current valid character
classification rules of
LC_CTYPE.
When none of the values is valid,
the shell character
classification defaults to the
POSIX.1 ``C''
locale.
FILES
- /etc/magic
-
SEE ALSO
locale.5
magic.5
BUGS
file
often makes mistakes. In particular, it often suggests that command
files are C programs.
Does not recognize Pascal or
LISP.
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved.
Last modified 11/5/97