List of all file command outputs?

Question

The file -b <path> command seems useful for scripting (filtering file types, not necessarily by extension). But for that you have to know the actual string output for your target filetype(s)

If I want to match certain file types, but don't have all of them handy, is there a list of all the possible outputs?

I found docs for the magic file - using cat /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc | grep -a 'pattern' sort of works, but it's awkward and you have to know exactly what you're looking for.

is there any documentation of the recognized file types somewhere?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Read man file and use file -l.
file inspect the first few bytes of a file to determine the "type". Note that Unix/Linux filenames treat "extensions" as just part of the filename. The use of the ".ext" extensions are just tradition, not a requirement.