Editing File (command) (section)

==Examples==

For a [[C (programming language)|C]] [[source code]] file, {{code|file main.c}} reports:

 main.c: C program text

For a compiled executable, {{code|file program}} reports information like:

 program: [[Executable and Linkable Format|ELF]] [[32-bit]] [[Least significant bit|LSB]] [[executable]], [[Intel 80386]], version 1 ([[SYSV]]), [[dynamically linked]]
     (uses [[Shared Library|shared libs]]), [[strip (Unix)|stripped]]

For a block device [[Device file#Naming conventions|/dev/hda]], {{code|file /dev/hda1}} reports:

 /dev/hda1: [[Device file#Block devices|block special]] (0/0)

By default, <code>file</code> does not try to read a device file due to potential undesirable effects. But using the non-standard option {{code|-s}} (available in the Ian Darwin branch), which requests to read device files to identify content, {{code|file -s /dev/hda1}} reports details such as:

 /dev/hda1: Linux/[[i386]] [[ext2]] [[filesystem]]

Via Ian Darwin's non-standard option <code>-k</code>, the command does not stop after the first hit found, but looks for other matching patterns. The <code>-r</code> option, which is available in some versions, causes the [[Newline|new line]] character to be displayed in its raw form rather than in its octal representation. On Linux, {{code|file -k -r libmagic-dev_5.35-4_armhf.deb}} reports information like:

 libmagic-dev_5.35-4_[[armhf]].[[deb (file format)|deb]]: Debian binary package (format 2.0)
 - current [[ar (Unix)|ar]] archive
 - data

For a compressed file, {{code|file compressed.gz}} reports information like:

 compressed.gz: [[gzip]] [[Data compression|compressed]] data, [[DEFLATE|deflated]], original filename, `compressed', last
     modified: Thu Jan 26 14:08:23 2006, [[Operating system|os]]: Unix

For a compressed file, {{code|file -i compressed.gz}} reports information like:

 compressed.gz: [[media type|application/x-gzip]]; [[character set|charset]]=[[Binary file|binary]]

For a PPM file, {{code|file data.ppm}} reports;

 data.ppm: [[Netpbm format|Netpbm PPM]] "rawbits" image data

For a [[Mach-O]] [[universal binary]], {{code|file /bin/cat}} reports like:

 /bin/cat: Mach-O universal binary with 2 [[Instruction set architecture|architectures]]
 /bin/cat (for architecture [[PowerPC|ppc7400]]):	Mach-O executable ppc
 /bin/cat (for architecture i386):	Mach-O executable i386

For a [[symbolic link]], {{code|file /usr/bin/vi}} reports:

 /usr/bin/vi: symbolic link to vim

Identifying a symbolic link is not available on all platforms and will be dereferenced if <code>-L</code> is passed or <code>POSIXLY_CORRECT</code> is set.