Getting Content-type/Mime type of the file using shellscript

swathikumar · 05-24-2011, 06:50 AM

Hi All,
I am copying the file form one directory to another directory using shellscript.
Here i want to get the Mimetype/Content-type of the file.

How to i can get the MimeType.
Can any one help me on this.

arizonagroovejet · 05-24-2011, 07:00 AM

Look at the file command.

Guttorm · 05-24-2011, 07:00 AM

Code:

file -i filename

swathikumar · 05-24-2011, 08:03 AM

Hi All,
If i copy a one ms-word file the Mimetype should be application/msword

How to i can get this Mimetype using shell script.

I tried to using
file -i filename it is giving "regular file" but i want actual content type.

grail · 05-24-2011, 08:20 AM

Well I am not sure why linux would necessarily know that mime type as it is not native nor an installed application, but the closest with file seems to be:

Code:

file --mime-type file.doc
file.doc: application/vnd.ms-office

man to the rescue again.

arizonagroovejet · 05-24-2011, 08:22 AM

Hmmm. I don't get application/msword

Code:

me@mine:~> file  ForeignLanguageSupport.doc
ForeignLanguageSupport.doc: Microsoft Office Document
me@mine:~> file -i ForeignLanguageSupport.doc
ForeignLanguageSupport.doc: application/octet-stream
me@mine:~> file --version
file-4.24
magic file from /etc/magic:/usr/share/misc/magic
me@mine:~> cat /etc/novell-release 
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (i586)
VERSION = 11
PATCHLEVEL = 1

If I build the very latest version from http://www.darwinsys.com/file/ I get something rather different

Code:

me@mine:~> /tmp/blah/bin/file  ForeignLanguageSupport.doc
ForeignLanguageSupport.doc: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 1.0, Code page: -535, Revision Number: 0, Total Editing Time: -584753d+00:00:00, Create Time/Date: Tue Jun 17 09:19:03 2008
me@mine:~> /tmp/blah/bin/file -i ForeignLanguageSupport.doc
ForeignLanguageSupport.doc: application/vnd.ms-office; charset=binary
me@mine:~> /tmp/blah/bin/file --version
file-5.07
magic file from /tmp/blah/share/misc/magic

Don't know why it's so different. What version of file are you using and on what version of Linux?

Code:

$ file --version

grail · 05-24-2011, 09:29 AM

I get most of your second set of information and version is 5.03

arizonagroovejet · 05-24-2011, 09:42 AM

I should perhaps clarify that my question "What version of file are you using and on what version of Linux?" was aimed at the OP(*). I was evidently typing at the same time as grail and their post was shorter so appeared two minutes before mine

(*) Who has only two posts and is posting from a machine running 'macos' according to the icon on their posts, which makes me wonder if they're under the impression that Mac OS X is a version of Linux. Their posting from a Mac doesn't mean they're not using Linux on another machine of course. I sometimes post from a Mac.

grail · 05-24-2011, 10:29 AM

That's fine ... just thought I would add mine to as the output was slightly different

(*) And MAC can probably be considered a derivation seeing it is just a really fancy wm on darwin anyway (duck)

swathikumar · 05-24-2011, 11:48 PM

Thanks All,

I got the Mimetype of the file using
file --mime-type filename