Create a new finfo instance

Description

Procedural style

finfo_open(int $flags = FILEINFO_NONE, ?string $magic_database = null): finfo|false

Object-oriented style (constructor):

public finfo::__construct(int $flags = FILEINFO_NONE, ?string $magic_database = null)

This function opens a magic database and returns its instance.

Parameters

flags

One or disjunction of more Fileinfo constants.

magic_database

Name of a magic database file, usually something like /path/to/magic.mime. If not specified, the MAGIC environment variable is used. If the environment variable isn't set, then PHP's bundled magic database will be used.

Passing null or an empty string will be equivalent to the default value.

Return Values

(Procedural style only) Returns an finfo instance on success, or false on failure.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.1.0	Returns an finfo instance now; previously, a resource was returned.
8.0.3	`magic_database` is nullable now.

Notes

Warning

The expected magic database format changed in PHP 5.3.11 and 5.4.1. Due to this, the internal magic database was upgraded. This mostly effects code where an external magic database is used: reading an older magic file will now fail. Also, some textual representations of the mime types has changed, for instance for PHP would be "PHP script, ASCII text" instead of "PHP script text" returned.

Note:
Generally, using the bundled magic database (by leaving magic_database and the MAGIC environment variables unset) is the best course of action unless you specifically need a custom magic database.

Examples

Example #1 Object-oriented style


<?php
$finfo = new finfo(FILEINFO_MIME, "/usr/share/misc/magic"); // return mime type ala mimetype extension

/* get mime-type for a specific file */
$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
echo $finfo->file($filename);

?>

Example #2 Procedural style


<?php
$finfo = finfo_open(FILEINFO_MIME, "/usr/share/misc/magic"); // return mime type ala mimetype extension

if (!$finfo) {
    echo "Opening fileinfo database failed";
    exit();
}

/* get mime-type for a specific file */
$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
echo finfo_file($finfo, $filename);

/* close connection */
finfo_close($finfo);
?>

The above example will output:

text/plain; charset=us-ascii

finfo_open

finfo::__construct