определить тип файла (determine file type)
История (History)
There has been a file
command in every UNIX since at least Research
Version 4 (man page dated November, 1973). The System V version
introduced one significant major change: the external list of magic
types. This slowed the program down slightly but made it a lot
more flexible.
This program, based on the System V version, was written by Ian
Darwin ⟨ian@darwinsys.com⟩ without looking at anybody else's source
code.
John Gilmore revised the code extensively, making it better than
the first version. Geoff Collyer found several inadequacies and
provided some magic file entries. Contributions of the '&'
operator by Rob McMahon, ⟨cudcv@warwick.ac.uk⟩, 1989.
Guy Harris, ⟨guy@netapp.com⟩, made many changes from 1993 to the
present.
Primary development and maintenance from 1990 to the present by
Christos Zoulas ⟨christos@astron.com⟩.
Altered by Chris Lowth ⟨chris@lowth.com⟩, 2000: handle the -i
option to output mime type strings, using an alternative magic file
and internal logic.
Altered by Eric Fischer ⟨enf@pobox.com⟩, July, 2000, to identify
character codes and attempt to identify the languages of non-ASCII
files.
Altered by Reuben Thomas ⟨rrt@sc3d.org⟩, 2007-2011, to improve MIME
support, merge MIME and non-MIME magic, support directories as well
as files of magic, apply many bug fixes, update and fix a lot of
magic, improve the build system, improve the documentation, and
rewrite the Python bindings in pure Python.
The list of contributors to the 'magic' directory (magic files) is
too long to include here. You know who you are; thank you. Many
contributors are listed in the source files.