File::MimeInfo::Rox(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation File::MimeInfo::Rox(3)

File::MimeInfo::Rox - Open files by mimetype "Rox style"

use File::MimeInfo::Magic;
use File::MimeInfo::Rox qw/:magic/;
# open some file with the appropriate program
mime_system($somefile);
# more verbose version
my $mt = mimetype($somefile)
  || die "Could not find mimetype for $somefile\n";
mime_system($somefile, $mt)
  || die "No program to open $somefile available\n";

This module tries to mimic the behaviour of the rox file browser http://rox.sf.net when "opening" data files. It determines the mime type and searches in rox's "Choices" directories for a program to handle that mimetype.

See the rox documentation for an extensive discussion of this mechanism.

The methods "mime_exec" and "mime_system" are exported, if you use the export tag ":magic" you get the same methods but File::MimeInfo::Magic will be used for mimetype lookup.

The environment variable "CHOICESPATH" is used when searching for rox's config dirs. It defaults to "$ENV{HOME}/Choices:/usr/local/share/Choices:/usr/share/Choices"

"mime_system($file, $mimetype, @_)"
Try to open $file with the appropriate program for files of it's mimetype. You can use $mimetype to force the mimetype. Also if you already know the mimetype it saves a lot of time to just tell it.

If either the mimetype couldn't be determined or no appropriate program could be found "undef" is returned. If the actual system fails an exception is raised.

All remaining arguments are passed on to the handler.

"mime_exec($file, $mimetype, @_)"
Like mime_system() but uses exec instead of system, so it never returns if successful.
Returns the list "($dir, $file)" for the suggested place to write new script files (or symlinks) for mimetype $mimetype. The suggested dir doesn't need to exist.

Jaap Karssenberg <pardus@cpan.org> Maintained by Michiel Beijen <mb@x14.nl>

Copyright (c) 2003, 2012 Jaap G Karssenberg. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

File::MimeInfo, File::MimeInfo::Magic, http://rox.sourceforce.net

2023-12-25 perl v5.38.1