file and "file -i"

[Steve Freegard]

Matt Hampton wrote:
> Julian Field wrote:
>   
>> The output from file and file -i are *completely* different, and they 
>> use a different magic file to produce it. This change would require all 
>> users rewrite all their filetypes.rules.conf files completely.
>> :-(
>>     
>
> Ah - but that would be a nice feature - check whether the mime type in
> the message matches the mime type of the file.....
>   

Hmmm  - you'd have to be pretty careful doing that as numerous FPs are 
likely to occur e.g. application/x-zip .vs. application/zip depending on 
what generated the message and what the magic file contains.

I personally prefer using mimetypes instead of 'file' as I've always 
noticed far less FPs with 'file -i'.  It's pretty easy to do this by 
pointing the file command to a shell-script that runs 'file -bi $*' 
instead and modify the filetypes rules accordingly.

It might be a nice feature to be able to use File::Type or File::MMagic 
instead of 'file -bi' though as it will return the result from an open 
filehandle instead of fork/exec of 'file'.

Cheers,
Steve.