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-.\" $FreeBSD$
-.\" $Id: file.man,v 1.57 2005/08/18 15:18:22 christos Exp $
-.Dd August 18, 2005
-.Dt FILE 1 "Copyright but distributable"
-.Os
-.Sh NAME
-.Nm file
-.Nd determine file type
-.Sh SYNOPSIS
-.Nm
-.Op Fl bchikLnNprsvz
-.Op Fl f Ar namefile
-.Op Fl F Ar separator
-.Op Fl m Ar magicfiles
-.Ar
-.Nm
-.Fl C
-.Op Fl m Ar magicfile
-.Sh DESCRIPTION
-This manual page documents version 4.21 of the
-.Nm
-utility which tests each argument in an attempt to classify it.
-There are three sets of tests, performed in this order:
-file system tests, magic number tests, and language tests.
-The
-.Em first
-test that succeeds causes the file type to be printed.
-.Pp
-The type printed will usually contain one of the words
-.Dq Li text
-(the file contains only
-printing characters and a few common control
-characters and is probably safe to read on an
-.Tn ASCII
-terminal),
-.Dq Li executable
-(the file contains the result of compiling a program
-in a form understandable to some
-.Ux
-kernel or another),
-or
-.Dq Li data
-meaning anything else (data is usually
-.Sq 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
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic
-or the program itself,
-.Em "preserve these keywords" .
-People depend on knowing that all the readable files in a directory
-have the word
-.Dq Li text
-printed.
-Do not do as Berkeley did and change
-.Dq Li "shell commands text"
-to
-.Dq Li "shell script" .
-Note that the file
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic
-is built mechanically from a large number of small files in
-the subdirectory
-.Pa Magdir
-in the source distribution of this program.
-.Pp
-The file system tests are based on examining the return from a
-.Xr stat 2
-system call.
-The program checks to see if the file is empty,
-or if it is 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
-.In 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)
-.Pa a.out
-file, whose format is defined in
-.In a.out.h
-and possibly
-.In exec.h
-in the standard include directory.
-These files have a
-.Sq "magic number"
-stored in a particular place
-near the beginning of the file that tells the
-.Ux
-operating system
-that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof.
-The concept of
-.Sq "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
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc ,
-or
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic
-if the compile file does not exist.
-In addition
-.Nm
-will look in
-.Pa $HOME/.magic.mgc ,
-or
-.Pa $HOME/.magic
-for magic entries.
-.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
-.Dq Li text
-because they will be mostly readable on nearly any terminal;
-UTF-16 and EBCDIC are only
-.Dq Li "character data"
-because, while
-they contain text, it is text that will require translation
-before it can be read.
-In addition,
-.Nm
-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
-.Ux Ns -standard
-LF, this will be reported.
-Files that contain embedded escape sequences or overstriking
-will also be identified.
-.Pp
-Once
-.Nm
-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
-.Pa names.h )
-that can appear anywhere in the first few blocks of a file.
-For example, the keyword
-.Ic .br
-indicates that the file is most likely a
-.Xr troff 1
-input file, just as the keyword
-.Ic 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
-.Xr 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
-.Dq Li data .
-.Sh OPTIONS
-.Bl -tag -width indent
-.It Fl b , -brief
-Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).
-.It Fl c , -checking-printout
-Cause a checking printout of the parsed form of the magic file.
-This is usually used in conjunction with
-.Fl m
-to debug a new magic file before installing it.
-.It Fl C , -compile
-Write a
-.Pa magic.mgc
-output file that contains a pre-parsed version of
-file.
-.It Fl f , -files-from Ar namefile
-Read the names of the files to be examined from
-.Ar namefile
-(one per line)
-before the argument list.
-Either
-.Ar namefile
-or at least one filename argument must be present;
-to test the standard input, use
-.Dq Fl
-as a filename argument.
-.It Fl F , -separator Ar separator
-Use the specified string as the separator between the filename and the
-file result returned.
-Defaults to
-.Ql \&: .
-.It Fl h , -no-dereference
-Causes symlinks not to be followed
-(on systems that support symbolic links).
-This is the default if the
-environment variable
-.Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
-is not defined.
-.It Fl i , -mime
-Causes the file command to output mime type strings rather than the more
-traditional human readable ones.
-Thus it may say
-.Dq Li "text/plain; charset=us-ascii"
-rather than
-.Dq Li "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
-.Pa magic
-file.
-(See
-.Sx FILES
-section, below).
-.It Fl k , -keep-going
-Do not stop at the first match, keep going.
-.It Fl L , -dereference
-option causes symlinks to be followed, as the like-named option in
-.Xr ls 1
-(on systems that support symbolic links).
-This is the default if the environment variable
-.Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
-is defined.
-.It Fl m , -magic-file Ar 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
-.Fl i
-or
-.Fl -mime
-option, the program adds
-.Pa .mime
-to each file name.
-.It Fl 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.
-.It Fl N , -no-pad
-Do not pad filenames so that they align in the output.
-.It Fl p , -preserve-date
-On systems that support
-.Xr utime 3
-or
-.Xr utimes 2 ,
-attempt to preserve the access time of files analyzed, to pretend that
-.Nm
-never read them.
-.It Fl r , -raw
-Do not translate unprintable characters to \eooo.
-Normally
-.Nm
-translates unprintable characters to their octal representation.
-.It Fl s , -special-files
-Normally,
-.Nm
-only attempts to read and determine the type of argument files which
-.Xr stat 2
-reports are ordinary files.
-This prevents problems, because reading special files may have peculiar
-consequences.
-Specifying the
-.Fl s
-option causes
-.Nm
-to also read argument files which are block or character special files.
-This is useful for determining the file system types of the data in raw
-disk partitions, which are block special files.
-This option also causes
-.Nm
-to disregard the file size as reported by
-.Xr stat 2
-since on some systems it reports a zero size for raw disk partitions.
-.It Fl v , -version
-Print the version of the program and exit.
-.It Fl z , -uncompress
-Try to look inside compressed files.
-.It Fl -help
-Print a help message and exit.
-.El
-.Sh FILES
-.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mime" -compact
-.It Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc
-Default compiled list of magic numbers
-.It Pa /usr/share/misc/magic
-Default list of magic numbers
-.It Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mime.mgc
-Default compiled list of magic numbers, used to output mime types when
-the
-.Fl i
-option is specified.
-.It Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mime
-Default list of magic numbers, used to output mime types when the
-.Fl i
-option is specified.
-.El
-.Sh ENVIRONMENT
-The environment variable
-.Ev MAGIC
-can be used to set the default magic number file name.
-If that variable is set, then
-.Nm
-will not attempt to open
-.Pa $HOME/.magic .
-.Nm
-adds
-.Pa .mime
-and/or
-.Pa .mgc
-to the value of this variable as appropriate.
-The environment variable
-.Ev POSIXLY_CORRECT
-controls (on systems that support symbolic links), if
-.Nm
-will attempt to follow symlinks or not.
-If set, then
-.Nm
-follows symlink, otherwise it does not.
-This is also controlled
-by the
-.Fl L
-and
-.Fl h
-options.
-.Sh SEE ALSO
-.Xr hexdump 1 ,
-.Xr od 1 ,
-.Xr strings 1 ,
-.Xr magic 5
-.Sh STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
-This program is believed to exceed the
-.St -svid4
-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,
-.Pp
-.Dl ">10 string language impress\ (imPRESS data)"
-.Pp
-in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
-.Pp
-.Dl ">10 string language\e impress (imPRESS data)"
-.Pp
-In addition, in this version, if a pattern string contains a backslash,
-it must be escaped.
-For example
-.Pp
-.Dl "0 string \ebegindata Andrew Toolkit document"
-.Pp
-in an existing magic file would have to be changed to
-.Pp
-.Dl "0 string \e\ebegindata Andrew Toolkit document"
-.Pp
-SunOS releases 3.2 and later from Sun Microsystems include a
-.Xr 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
-.Sq Ic &
-operator, used as,
-for example,
-.Pp
-.Dl ">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.
-.An 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
-.Nm
-command uses a magic file,
-keep the old magic file around for comparison purposes
-(rename it to
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.orig ) .
-.Sh EXAMPLES
-.Bd -literal
-$ 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
-.Ed
-.Sh HISTORY
-There has been a
-.Nm
-command in every
-.Ux
-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
-.An Ian Darwin Aq ian@darwinsys.com
-without looking at anybody else's source code.
-.Pp
-.An John Gilmore
-revised the code extensively, making it better than
-the first version.
-.An Geoff Collyer
-found several inadequacies
-and provided some magic file entries.
-Contributions by the
-.Sq Ic &
-operator by
-.An Rob McMahon Aq cudcv@warwick.ac.uk ,
-1989.
-.Pp
-.An Guy Harris Aq guy@netapp.com ,
-made many changes from 1993 to the present.
-.Pp
-Primary development and maintenance from 1990 to the present by
-.An Christos Zoulas Aq christos@astron.com .
-.Pp
-Altered by
-.An Chris Lowth Aq chris@lowth.com ,
-2000:
-Handle the
-.Fl i
-option to output mime type strings and using an alternative
-magic file and internal logic.
-.Pp
-Altered by
-.An Eric Fischer Aq enf@pobox.com ,
-July, 2000,
-to identify character codes and attempt to identify the languages
-of
-.No non- Ns Tn ASCII
-files.
-.Pp
-The list of contributors to the
-.Pa Magdir
-directory (source for the
-.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic
-file) is too long to include here.
-You know who you are; thank you.
-.Sh LEGAL NOTICE
-Copyright (c)
-.An Ian F. Darwin ,
-Toronto, Canada, 1986-1999.
-Covered by the standard Berkeley Software Distribution copyright; see the file
-.Pa LEGAL.NOTICE
-in the source distribution.
-.Pp
-The files
-.Pa tar.h
-and
-.Pa is_tar.c
-were written by
-.An John Gilmore
-from his public-domain
-.Nm tar
-program, and are not covered by the above license.
-.Sh BUGS
-There must be a better way to automate the construction of the
-.Pa Magic
-file from all the glop in
-.Pa Magdir .
-What is it?
-Better yet, the magic file should be compiled into binary (say,
-.Xr ndbm 3
-or, better yet, fixed-length
-.Tn 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
-The
-.Nm
-utility 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
-.Ic else
-clause to follow a series of continuation lines.
-.Pp
-The magic file and keywords should have regular expression support.
-Their use of
-.Tn "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.,
-.Xr troff 1
-commands vs man page macros.
-Regular expression support would make this easy.
-.Pp
-The program does not grok
-.Tn FORTRAN .
-It should be able to figure
-.Tn FORTRAN
-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
-.Pa ascmagic
-probably belongs in the
-.Pa Magic
-file.
-This could be done by using some keyword like
-.Sq Ic *
-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
-.Dq how good
-a guess is.
-We end up removing guesses (e.g.\&
-.Dq Li "From "
-as first 5 chars of file) because
-they are not as good as other guesses (e.g.\&
-.Dq Li "Newsgroups:"
-versus
-.Dq Li "Return-Path:" ) .
-Still, if the others do not 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
-.Pa ftp.astron.com
-in the directory
-.Pa /pub/file/file-X.YZ.tar.gz