Last updated: Fri, 01 Jun 2007

XXXVIII. Fileinfo Functions

Introduction

The functions in this module try to guess the content type and encoding of a file by looking for certain magic byte sequences at specific positions within the file. While this is not a bullet proof approach the heuristics used do a very good job.

Requirements

magic_open library is needed to build this extension.

Installation

Information for installing this PECL extension may be found in the manual chapter titled Installation of PECL extensions. Additional information such as new releases, downloads, source files, maintainer information, and a CHANGELOG, can be located here: » http://pecl.php.net/package/fileinfo

Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in php.ini.

Resource Types

There is one resource used in Fileinfo extension: a magic database descriptor returned by finfo_open().

Predefined Constants

The constants below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

FILEINFO_NONE (integer): No special handling.
FILEINFO_SYMLINK (integer): Follow symlinks.
FILEINFO_MIME (integer): Return a mime string, instead of a textual description.
FILEINFO_COMPRESS (integer): Decompress compressed files.
FILEINFO_DEVICES (integer): Look at the contents of blocks or character special devices.
FILEINFO_CONTINUE (integer): Return all matches, not just the first.
FILEINFO_PRESERVE_ATIME (integer): If possible preserve the original access time.
FILEINFO_RAW (integer): Don't translate unprintable characters to a \ooo octal representation.

finfo_buffer — Return information about a string buffer
finfo_close — Close fileinfo resource
finfo_file — Return information about a file
finfo_open — Create a new fileinfo resource
finfo_set_flags — Set libmagic configuration options

add a note User Contributed Notes
Fileinfo Functions

aidan at php dot net
15-Mar-2007 08:54


PHP Warning:  finfo::finfo(): Failed to load magic database at '/etc/magic'


PHP Warning:  finfo::file(): The invalid fileinfo object





These errors can be rectified by copying your magic database (depending on your distro, this file can be anywhere, on debian it's in /usr/share/file/magic) to /etc/magic.mime





libmagic automatically appends the .mime to the end of the filename, so PHP incorrectly reports the path it was looking for.





The same applies for:


PHP Warning:  finfo::finfo(): Failed to load magic database at '/etc/magic.mime'





Unfortunately users will have to call the magic file /etc/magic.mime.mime in this case.

Alexey
18-Feb-2007 02:39


Well, it is hard to install and use this extension. There is better alternative - use lunux comand "file". For  insturctions - "man file" from linux shell.



<?

echo system("file -i -b file.pdf");

?>



application/pdf

szotsaki at gmail dot com
01-Feb-2007 07:12


I am about to write how installed this package.



First of all, I tried with "pear install fileinfo" - as the manual says.

But the pear command said that 'Package "Fileinfo" is not valid,

install failed'.



Then the "pear install pecl/fileinfo" was a better way. But at that time the "phpize" command was missing.

I installed that (on openSUSE distributions it is in the php5-devel, but I think you can find it in your distro's corresponding php-devel package).



After that you may install "re2c" (I did). It's homepage is: http://sourceforge.net/projects/re2c



Copy the magic file of Apache (usually in /etc/apache2) into the following directory: /usr/locale/share/file/ or /usr/share/file/



Then you have to install "libmagic-dev". If you have Debian based system you can simply install it with apt.

But if you have an rpm based system (like me), you have to download the following package: http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libdevel/libmagic-dev

It contains the files we need. 

So, download the file, browse it with Midnight Commander (mc) (you have to apt and dpkg be installed) and simply extract (so copy) the /usr folder (it is inside the CONTENTS folder) of the .deb package to the root folder.



And now give the "pear install pecl/fileinfo" command another try :)



Ps: Don't forget to check whether the script has wrote the following line into the php.ini (on openSUSE: /etc/php5/apache2): extension=fileinfo.so



I hope, I could help.

motin at demomusic dot nu
10-Jan-2007 01:34


I had a real headache trying to install this package through pear/pecl. Ran into what looks like this bug: http://pecl.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=7673 (phpize fails)



I found downloading the package manually and running ./configure helped show what the problem is:



...

checking for fileinfo support... yes, shared

checking for magic files in default path... not found

configure: error: Please reinstall the libmagic distribution

<quit>



I though this was because of a missing magic-database like magic.mime but examining the configure-script, magic.h is searched for. 



Problem for me was that include/magic.h was not found. After some googling about where to find magic.h led me to the dead

simple solution:



apt-get install libmagic-dev



This does NOT solve the original installation bug strangely enough, but allows for manual installation:



1. Find the url to the latest version of fileinfo from http://pecl.php.net/package/Fileinfo (atm: http://pecl.php.net/get/Fileinfo-1.0.4.tgz)



2. Download, compile and install

wget http://pecl.php.net/get/Fileinfo-1.0.4.tgz

gunzip Fileinfo-1.0.4.tgz

tar -xvf Fileinfo-1.0.4.tar

cd fileinfo-1.0.4

./configure

make

make install



3. Add extension=fileinfo.so in your php.ini file



4. Restart Apache

jausions at php dot net
08-Jul-2006 07:26


For Windows users:



1. Go to http://pecl4win.php.net/ to get the php_fileinfo.dll if your PHP installation didn't come with it, and you haven't installed the Extensions package.



2. Then make sure you have extension=php_fileinfo.dll somewhere in your php.ini



3. Restart your web server.

deanariel at gmail dot com
14-Apr-2006 06:16


Sometime "pear install fileinfo" won't work....

so you can try "pear install pecl/fileinfo"

add a note

finfo_buffer

fdf_set_version