README.md
1# File-MimeInfo
2
3This module can be used to determine the mime type of a file; it's a
4replacement for [File::MMagic](https://metacpan.org/pod/File::MMagic)
5trying to implement the freedesktop specification for using the shared
6mime-info database. The package comes with a script called `mimetype`
7that can be used as a `file(1)` work-alike.
8
9Because this module uses the FreeDesktop MIME database, it's most
10suited for use in perl scripts that run on a desktop OS; in fact,
11this module is typically pre-installed on Debian and Ubuntu OSes
12so you can use its command line script `mimeopen` to open files in
13the GUI just like you can use `open` on macOS.
14
15## INSTALLATION
16
17To install this module type the following:
18
19 perl Makefile.PL
20 make
21 make test
22 make install
23
24## DEPENDENCIES
25
26This module expects the freedesktop mime database to be installed,
27some linux distributions include it, otherwise it can obtained
28from:
29
30 http://freedesktop.org/Software/shared-mime-info
31
32This module requires these other modules which can be obtained from
33the [CPAN](https://metacpan.org) if they are not already installed on
34your system:
35
36* Carp
37* Exporter
38* Fcntl
39* Pod::Usage
40* File::Basename
41* File::BaseDir
42* File::DesktopEntry
43
44## COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
45
46Copyright (c) 2003, 2008 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved.
47This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
48modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
49