[File] "file" as a type filter

[Christos Zoulas]

> On Jun 20, 2026, at 1:37 PM, Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I've recently discovered executable binaries in source archives while building Fedora packages, and I'd like to extend the standard tooling to detect and remove content that is not allowed by policy.
> 
> 
> 
> Naturally, "file" seems like the tool best suited to identifying file content so that we can strip out what isn't wanted. But file's output types are both hard to parse reliably.
> 
> 
> 
> What I would really like is a tool that accepted file types (or MIME types) as command line arguments, and which accepted a list of files on stdin and provided a list of files that match one of the types on stdout. Something that could be used as a filter.
> 
> 
> 
> Would you accept a patch that added functionality like that to the "file" command? Or would you accept one that added a new "file-filter" binary?
> 
Sure, but you can use -f to supply the list of files and use --mime-type to just print the mime-type and use egrep to select the mime times you want.

Best,

christos

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