my %mime_type = (); open (MIME, "/etc/mime.types") || die "can't open mime.types:$!\n"; while () { if (/^(\w\S+)\s+([\S\s]+)\n/) { my $mime = $1; my $tags = $2; while ( $tags =~ /\G(\w+)\s?/g ){ $mime_types{$1} = $mime; } } } close (MIME);