Detect file type of binary or ascii

Is there a clean way to detect for a file its type, either binary or ascii. More specifically, given an arbitrary file, I want to check it to see if it is an ascii file or a binary file. If the file is binary, I want to check it again to see what possible binary type it is: gzip, excel doc, pdf doc, etc.
What tips can you provide.
Thanks.

You could perhaps use a similar convention to perl:
http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/func/X.html
The -T and -B switches work as follows. The first block or so of the file is examined for odd characters such as strange control codes or characters with the high bit set. If too many strange characters (>30%) are found, it's a -B file, otherwise it's a -T file. Also, any file containing null in the first block is considered a binary file. If -T or -B is used on a filehandle, the current stdio buffer is examined rather than the first block. Both -T and -B return true on a null file, or a file at EOF when testing a filehandle. Because you have to read a file to do the -T test, on most occasions you want to use a -f against the file first, as in next unless -f $file && -T $file.

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...i know how to do the encoding on binary ...
...im not sure how to do this...Maybe you could start by explaining the problem in detail to yourself such that you understand it, then come back and tell us.
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Detecting file type in vba for word

I have directories full of files on a Mac. Most of these files are Doc files, some Txt files and some other types. Unfortunately the files don't have file extensions (not hidden but actually no file extensions). On a PC in a macro I need to open
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You need to
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Option Explicit
Function IsWordDoc(FullName As String) As Boolean
' FullName is the full path name of the file you want to check
Dim objDocumentProperties As DSOFile.OleDocumentProperties
IsWordDoc = False
Set objDocumentProperties = New DSOFile.OleDocumentProperties
' or you can add dsoOptionOnlyOpenOLEFiles to the options and
' use error trapping to detect -2147217148
objDocumentProperties.Open sFileName:=FullName, ReadOnly:=True, Options:=dsoOptionDontAutoCreate
If objDocumentProperties.IsOleFile Then
If objDocumentProperties.OleDocumentFormat = "MSWordDoc" Then
IsWordDoc = True
End If
End If
objDocumentProperties.Close savebeforeclose:=False
Set objDocumentProperties = Nothing
End Function
Sub testIsWordDoc()
Debug.Print IsWordDoc("c:\a\test.doc")
Debug.Print IsWordDoc("c:\a\test.xls")
End Sub
You may also find that the value of the property I am checking varies and that you need to look at other things, such as
objDocumentProperties.SummaryProperties.ApplicationName
but that value definitely varies according to the version of Word used to create the .doc, so you would need to discover what values it can have in a valid .doc.
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Hi
They are talking rubbish in the example given.
Basically any html/css/javascript/php/sql-statement and many others are written in ascii, whereas a video/image/audio/exe file are in binary, (as series of 0 or 1 bit) when created, as I said all files are in the end in binary but the software that is used by you, or your server is what translates them to or back-to the required format for us mere mortals.
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hii
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Hi
there r 4 possible values for file type...
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Greeting,
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The OS just watch the extension of the file.Not always. If you create a word doc but name it with
some other extension, the OS still can determine that
it is a word doc.On which OS?
if i take foo.exe and i rename foo.doc so my OSwill
try to open it as a MS Word Document.Again, garbage in, garbage out.What you mean?
If I create a MS Word Document for a file .doc that is not a real .doc and it is not able to read, i will just lose cpu time and a lot of memory.
So it is important to understand if I need really to open MS Word watching what is the real file type
Either way, you're going to be doing way too much
work (and wheel-reinventing) if you're going to build
your own detection scheme.In the SDK there is not any file type checker, and if eventually really exists an OS like you say that is able to read inside the file, i prefer to have my own Java class that do that work in a safe and opensource way.
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Sandy

Watch out! I think there is a bug in that code :-
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To answer your question - the usual way of determining a file type is to look for 'magic numbers' in the file that indicate its type. For example, Windows exe files often (always?) begin with the two letters 'MZ'. Zip files begin with 'PK'; Rar archives begin with 'Rar!'. Text files can begin with anything, and do not have any characteristic marker, but USASCII7 (which is what the format that routine is designed for - I think), is a characterset that only uses the first 7 bits of the byte. You could read the file, and if you find any bytes > 127, then you know it is not a USASCII7 file. I have seen various programs that 'sample' the first 64 or 256 bytes of a file instead of reading the whole file, and they usually get it right.
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How to save as Excel file type?

There were no Excel file type under the "Save As" function. Is there anyway to include Excel file type under this list? Snapshot attached.
Solved!
Go to Solution.
Attachments:
Export_file_types.png ‏28 KB

Hi NiCoder,
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1) Save to TDM or TDMS file and use the free TDM Excel Importer to load the data into Excel
2) Save to CSV file and use Excel's built-in ASCII file import feature to load the data into Excel
3) Load the gfsexcel.dll GPI-DLL and use the "File >> Save as..." option to export an *.xls data file
4) Use a custom VBScript to automate any of the above 3 options
5) Use a custom VBScript to directly send each Data Portal data channel to a column of values in Excel via ActiveX
Options 1) and 2) are easiest if you want a purely interactive solution. Option 1) will export all the data values as well as all the properties. Option 2) will export all the data values and the name of each channel in the Data Portal, but none of the other properties. If you choose to use option 3), know ahead of time that this feature is limited to 255 columns and will not export any custom properties, just the properties that existed back in DIAdem 8.1. Option 4) can add in all the custom properties that are missing in option 2). Option 5) can export all the data and all custom properties, but it is also the slowest option and involves the most programming.
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National Instruments

How to identify the file type in a safe way

I need to identify the filetype of a file in my disc.
I watched over internet and i've found this good site:
http://filext.com/
that supplys the "magic bytes" for many kind of files.
I have also looked over internet for some ready class that identify different file types, and I have found FFident:
http://schmidt.devlib.org/ffident/index.html
Do you know any other Java package/class that is able to identify correctly the file types?
Thank you,.

The OS just watch the extension of the file.Not always. If you create a word doc but name it with
some other extension, the OS still can determine that
it is a word doc.On which OS?
if i take foo.exe and i rename foo.doc so my OSwill
try to open it as a MS Word Document.Again, garbage in, garbage out.What you mean?
If I create a MS Word Document for a file .doc that is not a real .doc and it is not able to read, i will just lose cpu time and a lot of memory.
So it is important to understand if I need really to open MS Word watching what is the real file type
Either way, you're going to be doing way too much
work (and wheel-reinventing) if you're going to build
your own detection scheme.In the SDK there is not any file type checker, and if eventually really exists an OS like you say that is able to read inside the file, i prefer to have my own Java class that do that work in a safe and opensource way.
However in my first post i've given a site with some java code that do what I need, i just was asking if anyone know if there is any ready-to-work java class that is better for doing this work.

Detect file type of binary or ascii

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