python-magic is a python interface to the libmagic file type identification library. libmagic identifies file types by checking their headers according to a predefined list of file types. This functionality is exposed to the command line by the Unix command file.

>>> import magic >>> magic.from_file("testdata/test.pdf") 'PDF document, version 1.2' >>> magic.from_buffer(open("testdata/test.pdf").read(1024)) 'PDF document, version 1.2' >>> magic.from_file("testdata/test.pdf", mime=True) 'application/pdf' 

The current stable version of python-magic is available on pypi and can be installed by running pip install python-magic.

Other sources:

• pypi: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-magic/
• github: https://github.com/ahupp/python-magic

On Windows, you need to download and save the following libraries under C:\Windows\System32:

• regex2.dll from sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/regex/
• zlib1.dll from sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/zlib/
• magic1.dll from sourceforge.net/projects/gnuwin32/files/file/

Written by Adam Hupp in 2001 for a project that never got off the ground. It origionally used SWIG for the C library bindings, but switched to ctypes once that was part of the python standard library.

You can contact me via my website or github.

Thanks to these folks on github who submitted features and bugfixes.

• Amit Sethi
• bigben87
• fallgesetz
• FlaPer87
• lukenowak
• NicolasDelaby
• [email protected]
• SimpleSeb
• tehmaze

python-magic is distributed under the PSF License.