File/LibMagic version 0.92
==========================

DESCRIPTION

Interface to libmagic (from the file-4.x or file-5.x package from
Christos Zoulas, ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/).

INSTALLATION

To install this module type the following:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install

DEPENDENCIES/PREREQUISITES

This module requires these other modules and libraries:

  o) file-4.x or file-5x and the associated libmagic 
        (ftp://ftp.astron.com/pub/file/)
  o) on some systems zlib is required.

  o) COMMON PROBLEM: magic.h is not correctly placed (e.g. in /usr/include/
     or /usr/local/include/)

RELATED MODULES

I created File::LibMagic because I wanted to use libmagic (from file-4.x) and 
the otherwise great Module File::MMagic only works with file-3.x. In file-3.x 
exists no libmagic but an ascii file (/etc/magic) in which all data (magic
numbers, etc.) is included. File::MMagic parsed this ascii file at each request
and is thus releativly slow. Also it can not use the new data from file-4.x
or file-5.x.

File::MimeInfo::Magic uses the magic file from freedesktop which is encoded 
completely in XML, and thus not the fastest approach (
  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2003-December/msg00260.html
).

File::Type uses a relativly small magic file, which is directly hacked into
the module code. Thus it is quite fast. It is also mod_perl save.
It may be the right choice for you, but the databasis is quite small relative
to the file-package.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Author: Andreas Fitzner <fitzner@informatik.hu-berlin.de>, 
        Michael Hendricks <michael@ndrix.org>
May 2009

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.