I'm trying to understand the difference between file --mime-type and mimetype. They are giving me different results on Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS for this simple php file.
<?php echo 'Hello world!'; ?> Now when I use mimetype and file to get the type of the file, I get:
$ mimetype -b test.php application/x-php $ file -b --mime-type test.php test/x-php This question ('file --mime-type' and 'mimetype' Commands Returning Different Results) says that file uses /etc/mime.types however:
$ grep php /etc/mime.types application/x-httpd-php phtml pht php application/x-httpd-php-source phps application/x-httpd-php3 php3 application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed php3p application/x-httpd-php4 php4 application/x-httpd-php5 php5 I'm most curious about why file sees it as a text file. This is causing me problems in Rails as Ruby's MIME type also sees it as type application.
1 Answer
According to the manpage file doesn't use /etc/mime.types but the compiled definitions from /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc, the plain text definitions from /etc/magic and some other files.
You can get the source code for /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc from the source code of the file package (have a look into the magic/ subfolder).
If you want file to return application/x-php add the following to /etc/magic:
# PHP scripts # Ulf Harnhammar <> 0 search/1/c =<?php PHP script text !:mime application/x-php 0 search/1 =<?\n PHP script text !:mime application/x-php 0 search/1 =<?\r PHP script text !:mime application/x-php 0 search/1/w #!\ /usr/local/bin/php PHP script text executable !:mime application/x-php 0 search/1/w #!\ /usr/bin/php PHP script text executable !:mime application/x-php # Smarty compiled template, # Elan Ruusamäe <> 0 string =<?php\ /*\ Smarty\ version Smarty compiled template >24 regex [0-9.]+ \b, version %s !:mime application/x-php 
