Working of file command

rprajendran · #1 (**permalink**) 05-13-2008

Hi,

we are using sun solaris 9 os. I want to know how the file command works?
How does it differentiate text files, data files and other files ?
Is there any relationship between environmental variables and file command?

fabtagon · #2 (**permalink**) 05-13-2008

Generally file command takes a look inside the file and guesses based on heuristics or magic bytes (for formats that have some).

era · #3 (**permalink**) 05-13-2008

The magic(5) manual page explains the database format used by file(1).

The ENVIRONMENT section of the file(1) manual page (obviously) explains its interactions with environment variables.

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