Bash: Script for finding files by mime-type

Question

First, I am not experienced in scripting, so be gentle with me

Anyway, I tried making a script for finding files by mime-type ( audio, video, text...etc), and here's the poor result I came up with.

#!/bin/bash

FINDPATH="$1"
FILETYPE="$2"


locate $FINDPATH* | while read FILEPROCESS

do

   if  file -bi "$FILEPROCESS" | grep -q "$FILETYPE"
   then
      echo $FILEPROCESS
   fi

done

It works, but as you could guess, the performance is not so good.

So, can you guys help me make it better ? and also, I don't want to rely on files extensions.

Update:

Here's what I am using now

#!/bin/bash

FINDPATH="$1"


find "$FINDPATH" -type f | file -i -F "::" -f - | awk -v FILETYPE="$2"  -F"::" '$2 ~ FILETYPE { print $1 }'

hoijui · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-19 12:37:46Z

8

Forking (exec) is expensive. This runs the file command only once, so it is fast:

find . -print | file -if - | grep "what you want" | awk -F: '{print $1}'

or

locate what.want | file -if -

check man file

-i    #print mime types
-f -  #read filenames from the stdin

edited Mar 19, 2019 at 12:37

hoijui

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answered Jul 23, 2011 at 23:31

clt60

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1 Comment

masamunedark Over a year ago

Thanks, now I know why it was so slow ;)

Eric Fortis · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-23 23:47:59Z

1

#!/bin/bash
find $1 | file -if- | grep $2 | awk -F: '{print $1}'

edited Jul 23, 2011 at 23:47

answered Jul 23, 2011 at 20:14

Eric Fortis

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6 Comments

masamunedark Over a year ago

won't this locate files ending in .css, and then open them and search for "text/css"? if so, then that wasn't what I meant. I don't want to rely on filename extensions.

Eric Fortis Over a year ago

That's what I can understand from your question, can you be more specific in how do you want to determine the mime type? and for which file location?

masamunedark Over a year ago

for example, if I execute my script like this: " findbytype.sh /home/me audio", it shows all files reported to be audio by the command " file -i filename "

masamunedark Over a year ago

yes, thank you. this is kinda faster, but the problem is that grep looks for $2 in both the output of find and file, so even if file -i output doesn't contain $2 the file's name or any of it's parent directories may contain $2

Eric Fortis Over a year ago

That's is not a problem, you can use some fileextensions to narrow the iterations but this is scripting. you are confusing it with a real programming language

|

zadca123 · Accepted Answer · 2022-01-06 21:25:39Z

0

#!/usr/bin/env bash

mimetypes=$(sed -E 's/\/.*//g; /^$/d; /^#/d' /etc/mime.types | uniq)
display_help(){
    echo "Usage: ${0##*/} [mimetype]"
    echo "Available mimetypes:"
    echo "$mimetypes"
    exit 2
}

[[ $# -lt 1 ]] && display_help

ext=$(sed -E "/^${1}/!d; s/^[^ \t]+[ \t]*//g; /^$/d; s/ /\n/g" /etc/mime.types | sed -Ez 's/\n$//; s/\n/\\|/g; s/(.*)/\.*\\.\\(\1\\)\n/')
find "$PWD" -type f -regex "$ext"

answered Jan 6, 2022 at 21:25

zadca123

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