man/man1b/file.1b

         te
 Copyright (c) 1992, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
 The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE. If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
 FILE 1B "Sep 14, 1992"
 NAME
file - determine the type of a file by examining its contents
 SYNOPSIS

/usr/ucb/file [-f ffile] [-cL] [-m mfile] filename...


 DESCRIPTION

file performs a series of tests on each filename in an attempt to
determine what it contains. If the contents of a file appear to be ASCII
text, file examines the first 512 bytes and tries to guess its language.

file uses the file /etc/magic to identify files that have some sort
of magic number, that is, any file containing a numeric or string
constant that indicates its type.
 OPTIONS
-c

Check for format errors in the magic number file. For reasons of efficiency,
this validation is not normally carried out. No file type-checking is done
under -c.


-f ffile

Get a list of filenames to identify from ffile.


-L

If a file is a symbolic link, test the file the link references rather than the
link itself.


-m mfile

Use mfile as the name of an alternate magic number file.


 EXAMPLES

Example 1 Using file on all the files in a specific user's
directory.

This example illustrates the use of file on all the files in a specific
user's directory:

example% pwd
/usr/blort/misc


example% /usr/ucb/file *

code: mc68020 demand paged executable
code.c: c program text
counts: ascii text
doc: roff,nroff, or eqn input text
empty.file: empty
libz: archive random library
memos: directory
project: symbolic link to /usr/project
script: executable shell script
titles: ascii text
s5.stuff: cpio archive


example%


 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The environment variables LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default
control the character classification throughout file. On entry to
file, these environment variables are checked in the following order:
LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default. When a valid value is found,
remaining environment variables for character classification are ignored. For
example, a new setting for LANG does not override the current valid
character classification rules of LC_CTYPE. When none of the values is
valid, the shell character classification defaults to the POSIX.1 "C"
locale.
 FILES

/etc/magic
 SEE ALSO

 magic (5),  attributes (7)  BUGS

file often makes mistakes. In particular, it often suggests that command
files are C programs.

file does not recognize Pascal or LISP.