FileType 0.1.3 review

FileType is a file type detection engine written in C

License: BSD License File size: 34K Developer: Paul L Daniels

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FileType is a file type detection engine written in C. It will appeal to coders looking for functionality similar to that provided by the 'file' command.

FileType is compact (less than 20K binary), efficient, and very portable. FileType is part of the family of software created from the commercial Xamime email filtering project.

Here are some key features of "FileType":
file does not work so well for loosely defined filetypes ( ie, vCards )
file uses a text-based type database which can impose unwanted delays in frequently invoked processes
file does not have a heirachial type tree (ie, executable->MSDOS->EXE )
file is not designed to be incorporated at a source level into existing projects
Simpler and broader type detection engine ( 'file' is very good at pulling out every detail about a file, ie, the resolution of an image, however we do not wish to seek out such fine details )


Installation

make

make install



The install will copy 'filetype' and 'filetype-compile' to /usr/local/bin and copy 'filetype.spec' to /etc


What's New in This Release:
Changed the return value of FILETYPE_is_file_oftype(), it now returns -1 if the file wasn't of the type supplied or it returns the filetype array index if it was (0 > max filetype)