NAME

       File::LibMagic - Determine MIME types of data or files using libmagic

VERSION

       version 1.15

SYNOPSIS

         use File::LibMagic;

         my $magic = File::LibMagic->new();

         my $info = $magic->info_from_filename('path/to/file');
         # Prints a description like "ASCII text"
         print $info->{description};
         # Prints a MIME type like "text/plain"
         print $info->{mime_type};
         # Prints a character encoding like "us-ascii"
         print $info->{encoding};
         # Prints a MIME type with encoding like "text/plain; charset=us-ascii"
         print $info->{mime_with_encoding};

         my $file_content = read_file('path/to/file');
         $info = $magic->info_from_string($file_content);

         open my $fh, '<', 'path/to/file' or die $!;
         $info = $magic->info_from_handle($fh);

DESCRIPTION

       The "File::LibMagic" is a simple perl interface to libmagic from the file package (version
       4.x or 5.x). You will need both the library (libmagic.so) and the header file (magic.h) to
       build this Perl module.

   Installing libmagic
       On Debian/Ubuntu run:

           sudo apt-get install libmagic-dev

       On Mac you can use homebrew (http://brew.sh/):

           brew install libmagic

   Specifying lib and/or include directories
       On some systems, you may need to pass additional lib and include directories to the
       Makefile.PL. You can do this with the `--lib` and `--include` parameters:

           perl Makefile.PL --lib /usr/local/lib --include /usr/local/include

       You can pass these parameters multiple times to specify more than one location.

API

       This module provides an object-oriented API with the following methods:

   File::LibMagic->new()
       Creates a new File::LibMagic object.

       Using the object oriented interface only opens the magic database once, which is probably
       most efficient for repeated uses.

       Each "File::LibMagic" object loads the magic database independently of other
       "File::LibMagic" objects, so you may want to share a single object across many modules.

       This method takes the following named parameters:

       ·   magic_file

           This should be a string or an arrayref containing one or more magic files.

           If a file you provide doesn't exist the constructor will throw an exception, but only
           with libmagic 4.17+.

           If you don't set this parameter, the constructor will throw an exception if it can't
           find any magic files at all.

           Note that even if you're using a custom file, you probably also want to use the
           standard file (/usr/share/misc/magic on my system, yours may vary).

       ·   follow_symlinks

           If this is true, then calls to "$magic->info_from_filename" will follow symlinks to
           the real file.

       ·   uncompress

           If this is true, then compressed files (such as gzip files) will be uncompressed, and
           the various "info_from_*" methods will return info about the uncompressed file.

   $magic->info_from_filename('path/to/file')
       This method returns info about the given file. The return value is a hash reference with
       four keys:

       ·   description

           A textual description of the file content like "ASCII C program text".

       ·   mime_type

           The MIME type without a character encoding, like "text/x-c".

       ·   encoding

           Just the character encoding, like "us-ascii".

       ·   mime_with_encoding

           The MIME type with a character encoding, like "text/x-c; charset=us-ascii". Note that
           if no encoding was found, this will be the same as the "mime_type" key.

   $magic->info_from_string($string)
       This method returns info about the given string. The string can be passed as a reference
       to save memory.

       The return value is the same as that of "$mime->info_from_filename()".

   $magic->info_from_handle($fh)
       This method returns info about the given filehandle. It will read data starting from the
       handle's current position, and leave the handle at that same position after reading.

DISCOURAGED APIS

       This module offers two different procedural APIs based on optional exports, the "easy" and
       "complete" interfaces. There is also an older OO API still available. All of these APIs
       are discouraged, but will not be removed in the near future, nor will using them cause any
       warnings.

       I strongly recommend you use the new OO API. It's simpler than the complete interface,
       more efficient than the easy interface, and more featureful than the old OO API.

   The Old OO API
       This API uses the same constructor as the current API.

       ·   $magic->checktype_contents($data)

           Returns the MIME type of the data given as the first argument. The data can be passed
           as a plain scalar or as a reference to a scalar.

           This is the same value as would be returned by the "file" command with the "-i"
           switch.

       ·   $magic->checktype_filename($filename)

           Returns the MIME type of the given file.

           This is the same value as would be returned by the "file" command with the "-i"
           switch.

       ·   $magic->describe_contents($data)

           Returns a description (as a string) of the data given as the first argument.  The data
           can be passed as a plain scalar or as a reference to a scalar.

           This is the same value as would be returned by the "file" command with no switches.

       ·   $magic->describe_filename($filename)

           Returns a description (as a string) of the given file.

           This is the same value as would be returned by the "file" command with no switches.

   The "easy" interface
       This interface is exported by:

         use File::LibMagic ':easy';

       This interface exports two subroutines:

       ·   MagicBuffer($data)

           Returns the description of a chunk of data, just like the "describe_contents" method.

       ·   MagicFile($filename)

           Returns the description of a file, just like the "describe_filename" method.

   The "complete" interface
       This interface is exported by:

         use File::LibMagic ':complete';

       This interface exports several subroutines:

       ·   magic_open($flags)

           This subroutine opens creates a magic handle. See the libmagic man page for a
           description of all the flags. These are exported by the ":complete" import.

             my $handle = magic_open(MAGIC_MIME);

       ·   magic_load($handle, $filename)

           This subroutine actually loads the magic file. The $filename argument is optional.
           There should be a sane default compiled into your "libmagic" library.

       ·   magic_buffer($handle, $data)

           This returns information about a chunk of data as a string. What it returns depends on
           the flags you passed to "magic_open", a description, a MIME type, etc.

       ·   magic_file($handle, $filename)

           This returns information about a file as a string. What it returns depends on the
           flags you passed to "magic_open", a description, a MIME type, etc.

       ·   magic_close($handle)

           Closes the magic handle.

EXCEPTIONS

       This module can throw an exception if your system runs out of memory when trying to call
       "magic_open" internally.

SUPPORT

       Please submit bugs to the CPAN RT system at
       http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=File-LibMagic or via email at
       bug-file-libmagic@rt.cpan.org.

BUGS

       This module is totally dependent on the version of file on your system. It's possible that
       the tests will fail because of this. Please report these failures so I can make the tests
       smarter. Please make sure to report the version of file on your system as well!

DEPENDENCIES/PREREQUISITES

       This module requires file 4.x or file 5x and the associated libmagic library and headers
       (http://darwinsys.com/file/).

RELATED MODULES

       Andreas created File::LibMagic because he wanted to use libmagic (from file 4.x)
       File::MMagic only worked with file 3.x.

       File::MimeInfo::Magic uses the magic file from freedesktop.org which is encoded in XML,
       and is thus not the fastest approach. See
       <http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2003-December/msg00260.html> for a
       discussion of this issue.

       File::Type uses a relatively small magic file, which is directly hacked into the module
       code. It is quite fast but the database is quite small relative to the file package.

AUTHORS

       ·   Andreas Fitzner

       ·   Michael Hendricks <michael@ndrix.org>

       ·   Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>

CONTRIBUTORS

       ·   E. Choroba <choroba@matfyz.cz>

       ·   Mithun Ayachit <mayachit@amfam.com>

       ·   Olaf Alders <olaf@wundersolutions.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2015 by Andreas Fitzner, Michael Hendricks, and Dave
       Rolsky.

       This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
       the Perl 5 programming language system itself.