NAME

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

VERSION

       version 1.00

SYNOPSIS

         use File::LibMagic;

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

         # prints a description like "ASCII text"
         print $magic->describe_filename('path/to/file');
         print $magic->describe_contents('this is some data');

         # Prints a MIME type like "text/plain; charset=us-ascii"
         print $magic->checktype_filename('path/to/file');
         print $magic->checktype_contents('this is some data');

DESCRIPTION

       The "File::LibMagic" is a simple perl interface to libmagic from the file package (version
       4.x or 5.x).

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 provides an efficient way to repeatedly determine the
       magic of a file.

       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 as a singleton.

       This method takes an optional argument containing a path to the magic file. If the file
       doesn't exist this will throw an exception (but only with libmagic 4.17+).

       If you don't pass an argument, it will throw an exception if it can't find any magic files
       at all.

   $magic->checktype_contents($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.

DEPRECATED APIS

       This module offers two different procedural APIS based on optional exports, the "easy" and
       "complete" interfaces. These APIS are now deprecated. I strongly recommend you use the OO
       interface. It's simpler than the complete interface and more efficient than the easy
       interface.

   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 ':easy';

       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 you 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>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       This software is copyright (c) 2013 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.