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Determine Content-Type

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# 1  
Old 08-23-2011
Determine Content-Type
I am limited to using only libraries that come with the default install of ActivePerl. I'd like to be able to determine the content type of a file on the fly. I thought CGI.pm might do it, but it looks a little weird to me from the perldoc. If someone has a quick way to determine the type of file, I'd appreciate it. A piece of sample code would be great.
# 2  
Old 08-23-2011
CGI doesn't tell you what a file is unless you're downloading the file. Even then, it can lie.

Determining what a file is isn't trivial when you aren't told. The file utility opens it and checks the first handful of bytes against a database of magic numbers:
Code:
$ file /bin/bash
/bin/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, stripped
$

which you can use in perl with system() or `backticks`.
# 3  
Old 08-24-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
CGI doesn't tell you what a file is unless you're downloading the file. Even then, it can lie.

Determining what a file is isn't trivial when you aren't told. The file utility opens it and checks the first handful of bytes against a database of magic numbers:
Code:
$ file /bin/bash
/bin/bash: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, stripped
$

which you can use in perl with system() or `backticks`.
Thanks for the info. Does it support any type of formatting for when I'm using something like Net::SMTP? I'd like to make use of this for specifying if I'm using application/text, etc.
# 4  
Old 08-24-2011
If you'd tried checking its manual page, nearly the very first thing you'd see would be --mime-encoding.
# 5  
Old 08-24-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corona688
If you'd tried checking its manual page, nearly the very first thing you'd see would be --mime-encoding.
Yup, I checked the man pages and the version of file I'm using on this Sparc machine only supports the -d, -c, -f, -h, -i, and -m flags. Sometimes, I'm a little limited to what I can use.
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