getting mime type from file content

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Does anyone know how to do this:

$file_data = # ascii or binary data
$mime_type = get_mime_type($file_data);
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Why do I want to do this? I have binary and text data stored in a database. I don't have the file extension. I need to send a correct http header. Anyone got any ideas?

Comment on getting mime type from file content Download Code

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Re: getting mime type from file content by Moonie (Friar) on Nov 30, 2001 at 03:26 UTC
You may want to check out File::MMagic. I'm not sure if that'll work.. arturo's suggestion is a good idea. - Moon	[reply]
Re: Re: getting mime type from file content by Anonymous Monk on Nov 30, 2001 at 03:39 UTC
Thank you - works perfect.	[reply]
Re: getting mime type from file content by arturo (Vicar) on Nov 30, 2001 at 03:18 UTC
Instead of implementing a potentially expensive and in all likelihood unreliable method of figuring out which is which, why not store the MIME type in the database? HTH	[reply]
Re: Re: getting mime type from file content by Anonymous Monk on Nov 30, 2001 at 03:31 UTC
Shouldn't be expensive. I would be happy to just get the output from the unix file command. That would be enough to create a mime type. The file command is fast enough for me. It's too bad I can't do this with the file command `echo hello \| file`	[reply]