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-.TH FILE __CSECTION__ "Copyright but distributable"
-.\" $Id: file.man,v 1.54 2003/10/27 18:09:08 christos Exp $
-.SH NAME
-file
-\- determine file type
-.SH SYNOPSIS
-.B file
-[
-.B \-bcikLnNprsvz
-]
-[
-.B \-f
-.I namefile
-]
-[
-.B \-F
-.I separator
-]
-[
-.B \-m
-.I magicfiles
-]
-.I file
-\&...
-.br
-.B file
-.B -C
-[
-.B \-m
-magicfile ]
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-This manual page documents version __VERSION__ of the
-.B file
-command.
-.PP
-.B File
-tests each argument in an attempt to classify it.
-There are three sets of tests, performed in this order:
-filesystem tests, magic number tests, and language tests.
-The
-.I first
-test that succeeds causes the file type to be printed.
-.PP
-The type printed will usually contain one of the words
-.B text
-(the file contains only
-printing characters and a few common control
-characters and is probably safe to read on an
-.SM ASCII
-terminal),
-.B executable
-(the file contains the result of compiling a program
-in a form understandable to some \s-1UNIX\s0 kernel or another),
-or
-.B data
-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 the file
-.I __MAGIC__
-or the program itself,
-.B "preserve these keywords" .
-People depend on knowing that all the readable files in a directory
-have the word ``text'' printed.
-Don't do as Berkeley did and change ``shell commands text''
-to ``shell script''.
-Note that the file
-.I __MAGIC__
-is built mechanically from a large number of small files in
-the subdirectory
-.I Magdir
-in the source distribution of this program.
-.PP
-The filesystem tests are based on examining the return from a
-.BR stat (2)
-system call.
-The program checks to see if the file is empty,
-or if it's some sort of special file.
-Any known file types appropriate to the system you are running on
-(sockets, symbolic links, or named pipes (FIFOs) on those systems that
-implement them)
-are intuited if they are defined in
-the system header file
-.IR <sys/stat.h> .
-.PP
-The magic number tests are used to check for files with data in
-particular fixed formats.
-The canonical example of this is a binary executable (compiled program)
-.I a.out
-file, whose format is defined in
-.I a.out.h
-and possibly
-.I 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 \s-1UNIX\s0 operating system
-that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof.
-The concept of `magic number' has been applied by extension to data files.
-Any file with 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 the compiled
-magic file
-.I __MAGIC__.mgc ,
-or
-.I __MAGIC__
-if the compile file does not exist.
-.PP
-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-ASCII character sets
-(such as those used on Macintosh and IBM PC systems),
-UTF-8-encoded Unicode, UTF-16-encoded Unicode, and EBCDIC
-character sets can be distinguished 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 reported.
-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 will require translation
-before it can be read.
-In addition,
-.B file
-will attempt to determine other characteristics of text-type files.
-If the lines of a file are terminated by CR, CRLF, or NEL, instead
-of the Unix-standard LF, this will be reported.
-Files that contain embedded escape sequences or overstriking
-will also be identified.
-.PP
-Once
-.B file
-has determined the character set used in a text-type file,
-it will
-attempt to determine in what language the file is written.
-The language tests look for particular strings (cf
-.IR names.h )
-that can appear anywhere in the first few blocks of a file.
-For example, the keyword
-.B .br
-indicates that the file is most likely a
-.BR troff (1)
-input file, just as the keyword
-.B struct
-indicates a C program.
-These tests are less reliable than the previous
-two groups, so they are performed last.
-The language test routines also test for some miscellany
-(such as
-.BR tar (1)
-archives).
-.PP
-Any file that cannot be identified as having been written
-in any of the character sets listed above is simply said to be ``data''.
-.SH OPTIONS
-.TP 8
-.B "\-b, \-\-brief"
-Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).
-.TP 8
-.B "\-c, \-\-checking\-printout"
-Cause a checking printout of the parsed form of the magic file.
-This is usually used in conjunction with
-.B \-m
-to debug a new magic file before installing it.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-C, \-\-compile"
-Write a magic.mgc output file that contains a pre-parsed version of
-file.
-.TP 8
-.BI "\-f, \-\-files\-from" " namefile"
-Read the names of the files to be examined from
-.I namefile
-(one per line)
-before the argument list.
-Either
-.I namefile
-or at least one filename argument must be present;
-to test the standard input, use ``\-'' as a filename argument.
-.TP 8
-.BI "\-F, \-\-separator" " separator"
-Use the specified string as the separator between the filename and the
-file result returned. Defaults to ``:''.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-i, \-\-mime"
-Causes the file command to output mime type strings rather than the more
-traditional 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 handles files recognised by the command itself (such as many of the
-text file types, directories etc), and makes use of an alternative
-``magic'' file.
-(See ``FILES'' section, below).
-.TP 8
-.B "\-k, \-\-keep\-going"
-Don't stop at the first match, keep going.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-L, \-\-dereference"
-option causes symlinks to be followed, as the like-named option in
-.BR ls (1).
-(on systems that support symbolic links).
-.TP 8
-.BI "\-m, \-\-magic\-file" " list"
-Specify an alternate list of files containing magic numbers.
-This can be a single file, or a colon-separated list of files.
-If a compiled magic file is found alongside, it will be used instead.
-With the \-i or \-\-mime option, the program adds ".mime" to each file name.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-n, \-\-no\-buffer"
-Force stdout to be flushed after checking each file.
-This is only useful if checking a list of files.
-It is intended to be used by programs that want filetype output from a pipe.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-N, \-\-no\-pad"
-Don't pad filenames so that they align in the output.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-p, \-\-preserve\-date"
-On systems that support
-.BR utime (2)
-or
-.BR utimes(2),
-attempt to preserve the access time of files analyzed, to pretend that
-.BR file (2)
-never read them.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-r, \-\-raw"
-Don't translate unprintable characters to \eooo.
-Normally
-.B file
-translates unprintable characters to their octal representation.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-s, \-\-special\-files"
-Normally,
-.B file
-only attempts to read and determine the type of argument files which
-.BR stat (2)
-reports are ordinary files.
-This prevents problems, because reading special files may have peculiar
-consequences.
-Specifying the
-.BR \-s
-option causes
-.B file
-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 partitions, which are block special files.
-This option also causes
-.B file
-to disregard the file size as reported by
-.BR stat (2)
-since on some systems it reports a zero size for raw disk partitions.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-v, \-\-version"
-Print the version of the program and exit.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-z, \-\-uncompress"
-Try to look inside compressed files.
-.TP 8
-.B "\-\-help"
-Print a help message and exit.
-.SH FILES
-.TP
-.I __MAGIC__.mgc
-Default compiled list of magic numbers
-.TP
-.I __MAGIC__
-Default list of magic numbers
-.TP
-.I __MAGIC__.mime.mgc
-Default compiled list of magic numbers, used to output mime types when
-the -i option is specified.
-.TP
-.I __MAGIC__.mime
-Default list of magic numbers, used to output mime types when the -i option
-is specified.
-.TP
-.I /etc/magic
-Local additions to magic wisdom.
-
-.SH ENVIRONMENT
-The environment variable
-.B MAGIC
-can be used to set the default magic number file name.
-.B file
-adds ".mime" and/or ".mgc" to the value of this variable as appropriate.
-.SH SEE ALSO
-.BR magic (__FSECTION__)
-\- description of magic file format.
-.br
-.BR strings (1), " od" (1), " hexdump(1)"
-\- tools for examining non-textfiles.
-.SH 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 behaviour is mostly compatible with the System V program of the same name.
-This version knows more magic, however, so it will produce
-different (albeit more accurate) output in many cases.
-.PP
-The one significant difference
-between this version and System V
-is that this version treats any white space
-as a delimiter, so that spaces in pattern strings must be escaped.
-For example,
-.br
->10 string language impress\ (imPRESS data)
-.br
-in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
-.br
->10 string language\e impress (imPRESS data)
-.br
-In addition, in this version, if a pattern string contains a backslash,
-it must be escaped.
-For example
-.br
-0 string \ebegindata Andrew Toolkit document
-.br
-in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
-.br
-0 string \e\ebegindata Andrew Toolkit document
-.br
-.PP
-SunOS releases 3.2 and later from Sun Microsystems include a
-.BR file (1)
-command derived 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,
-.br
->16 long&0x7fffffff >0 not stripped
-.SH 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 entries
-will be distributed periodically.
-.PP
-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 old
-.B file
-command uses a magic file,
-keep the old magic file around for comparison purposes
-(rename it to
-.IR __MAGIC__.orig ).
-.SH EXAMPLES
-.nf
-$ 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, dynamically linked (uses shared libs),
-not stripped
-/dev/hda: application/x-not-regular-file
-/dev/wd0a: application/x-not-regular-file
-
-.fi
-.SH HISTORY
-There has been a
-.B file
-command in every \s-1UNIX\s0 since at least Research Version 4
-(man page dated November, 1973).
-The System V version introduced one significant major change:
-the external list of magic number types.
-This slowed the program down slightly but made it a lot more flexible.
-.PP
-This program, based on the System V version,
-was written by Ian Darwin <ian@darwinsys.com>
-without looking at anybody else's source code.
-.PP
-John Gilmore revised the code extensively, making it better than
-the first version.
-Geoff Collyer found several inadequacies
-and provided some magic file entries.
-Contributions by the `&' operator by Rob McMahon, cudcv@warwick.ac.uk, 1989.
-.PP
-Guy Harris, guy@netapp.com, made many changes from 1993 to the present.
-.PP
-Primary development and maintenance from 1990 to the present by
-Christos Zoulas (christos@astron.com).
-.PP
-Altered by Chris Lowth, chris@lowth.com, 2000:
-Handle the ``-i'' option to output mime type strings and using an alternative
-magic file and internal logic.
-.PP
-Altered by Eric Fischer (enf@pobox.com), July, 2000,
-to identify character codes and attempt to identify the languages
-of non-ASCII files.
-.PP
-The list of contributors to the "Magdir" directory (source for the
-/etc/magic
-file) is too long to include here.
-You know who you are; thank you.
-.SH LEGAL NOTICE
-Copyright (c) Ian F. Darwin, Toronto, Canada, 1986-1999.
-Covered by the standard Berkeley Software Distribution copyright; see the file
-LEGAL.NOTICE in the source distribution.
-.PP
-The files
-.I tar.h
-and
-.I is_tar.c
-were written by John Gilmore from his public-domain
-.B tar
-program, and are not covered by the above license.
-.SH BUGS
-There must be a better way to automate the construction of the Magic
-file from all the glop in magdir.
-What is it?
-Better yet, the magic file should be compiled into binary (say,
-.BR ndbm (3)
-or, better yet, fixed-length
-.SM ASCII
-strings for use in heterogenous network environments) for faster startup.
-Then the program would run as fast as the Version 7 program of the same name,
-with the flexibility of the System V version.
-.PP
-.B File
-uses several algorithms that favor speed over accuracy,
-thus it can be misled about the contents of
-text
-files.
-.PP
-The support for
-text
-files (primarily for programming languages)
-is simplistic, inefficient and requires recompilation to update.
-.PP
-There should be an ``else'' clause to follow a series of continuation lines.
-.PP
-The magic file and keywords should have regular expression support.
-Their use of
-.SM "ASCII TAB"
-as a field delimiter is ugly and makes
-it hard to edit the files, but is entrenched.
-.PP
-It might be advisable to allow upper-case letters in keywords
-for e.g.,
-.BR troff (1)
-commands vs man page macros.
-Regular expression support would make this easy.
-.PP
-The program doesn't grok \s-2FORTRAN\s0.
-It should be able to figure \s-2FORTRAN\s0 by seeing some keywords which
-appear indented at the start of line.
-Regular expression support would make this easy.
-.PP
-The list of keywords in
-.I ascmagic
-probably belongs in the Magic file.
-This could be done by using some keyword like `*' for the offset value.
-.PP
-Another optimisation would be to sort
-the magic file so that we can just run down all the
-tests for the first byte, first word, first long, etc, once we
-have fetched it.
-Complain about conflicts in the magic file entries.
-Make a rule that the magic entries sort based on file offset rather
-than position within the magic file?
-.PP
-The program should provide a way to give an estimate
-of ``how good'' a guess is.
-We end up removing guesses (e.g. ``From '' as 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.
-.PP
-This program is slower than some vendors' file commands.
-The new support for multiple character codes makes it even slower.
-.PP
-This manual page, and particularly this section, is too long.
-.SH AVAILABILITY
-You can obtain the original author's latest version by anonymous FTP
-on
-.B ftp.astron.com
-in the directory
-.I /pub/file/file-X.YZ.tar.gz