Hi guys,

I am writing a sub to determine the file type of a file like the unix command file does (by using magic files). There are 3 major CPAN modules available for doing this:

  1. File::Type
  2. File::MimeInfo::Magic
  3. File::MMagic

File::Type as it says was made to overcome the limitation of File::MimeInfo but it fails to check even basic files. For e.g. it identifies a text files as application/octet-stream.

File::MMagic is based on some apache software to do its job. I found it better than File::Type as in it does not screw up identifying text files. But for video files, it identifies them as application/octet stream, Identifies mp3 files as application/octet-stream (File::Type identifies mp3 as audio/mp3)

File::MimeInfo::Magic is a derivative of File::MimeInfo to use magic for determining file types. If magic fails we have the option of falling back on the way MimeInfo checks (using freedesktop database). I found it better than the other two as in it passed the simple text file checks, identifies videos (checked for .flv and .m2v) and audio as audio/mpeg

Here is a comparison of their outputs: 


File::Type video1.flv - application/octet-stream
File::MimeInfo::Magic video1.flv - application/x-flash-video
File::MMagic video1.flv - application/octet-stream

File::Type fdcheck - application/x-executable-file
File::MimeInfo::Magic fdcheck - application/x-executable
File::MMagic fdcheck - application/octet-stream

File::Type filetypes.pl - application/x-perl
File::MimeInfo::Magic filetypes.pl - application/x-perl
File::MMagic filetypes.pl - x-system/x-unix;  executable /usr/bin/perl
+ script text

File::Type latex-setup.tgz - application/x-gzip
File::MimeInfo::Magic latex-setup.tgz - application/x-gzip
File::MMagic latex-setup.tgz - application/x-gzip

File::Type mail3.eml - message/rfc822
File::MimeInfo::Magic mail3.eml - message/rfc822
File::MMagic mail3.eml - message/rfc822

File::Type video.m2v - application/octet-stream
File::MimeInfo::Magic video.m2v - video/x-msvideo
File::MMagic video.m2v - application/octet-stream

File::Type utf - application/octet-stream
File::MimeInfo::Magic utf - text/plain
File::MMagic utf - text/plain

File::Type audio.mp3 - audio/mp3
File::MimeInfo::Magic audio.mp3 - audio/mpeg
File::MMagic audio.mp3 - application/octet-stream

File::Type file.txt - application/octet-stream
File::MimeInfo::Magic file.txt - text/plain
File::MMagic file.txt - text/plain

[download]

The problem is that - I don't know which of them confirms to the MIME types used in email messages. For e.g File::MIMEInfo (and not File::MIMEInfo::Magic) identifies tgz files as application/compressed-tar while my email message has its content type as application/x-gzip.

Which of these modules should one use when creating MIME messages? - i.e. when I build an entity using MIME::Entity "attach" method, I have to give the "Type" which I want to determine using one of these.

In reply to Comparing different MIME type checking modules by saurabh.hirani

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