Re: using libmagic in Emacs?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Eli Zaretskii writes:

 > Maybe so, but still "man file" shows this at the very first line:
 > 
 >        file - determine file type

Sure.  file does more than invoke libmagic, though, and in the Unix
context the ambiguous "type" is not so problematic; it is basically
defined by "what file(1) does."  For the broader audience, if "magic"
is unacceptable, they probably don't know what file(1) does.

 > But if this function will fall back on something else if libmagic is
 > not available, then I think this name is not a good one.

This function should be available in a form which only uses libmagic.
What other tests should be done should be done in LISP, and I see no
reason to hide the libmagic functionality in an "-internal" or
otherwise "not for regular use" form.