Comment by scrollaway
11 years ago
No, the databases are very different. `file` can do some very advanced file processing, while xdg-mime has a regex-ish syntax for scanning part of the file.
More to the point though, the xdg database is extensible. While `file` requires playing with the source.
But then one could combine the good parts of both? Very advanced file processing + extensible database, sounds awesome. ;)
I mean seriously, once I wrote a simple web app in Go and the content-type for static serving was determined via file. (It's just so easy.) But nobody in the world wants to have Desktop stuff installed on her server.
The databases are not combinable, that doesn't mean they don't look at each others' improvements. File keeps an eye on new formats in s-m-i and vice versa.
That's the least one can do when working with Copy&Paste ;)