.\" $NetBSD: magic.5,v 1.20 2019/05/22 17:26:05 christos Exp $
.\"
.\" $File: magic.man,v 1.96 2019/01/21 14:56:53 christos Exp $
.Dd January 21, 2019
.Dt MAGIC 5
.Os
.\" install as magic.4 on USG, magic.5 on V7, Berkeley and Linux systems.
.Sh NAME
.Nm magic
.Nd file command's magic pattern file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents the format of magic files as
used by the
.Xr file 1
command, version 5.37.
The
.Xr file 1
command identifies the type of a file using,
among other tests,
a test for whether the file contains certain
.Dq "magic patterns" .
The database of these
.Dq "magic patterns"
is usually located in a binary file in
.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc
or a directory of source text magic pattern fragment files in
.Pa /usr/share/misc/magic .
The database specifies what patterns are to be tested for, what message or
MIME type to print if a particular pattern is found,
and additional information to extract from the file.
.Pp
The format of the source fragment files that are used to build this database
is as follows:
Each line of a fragment file specifies a test to be performed.
A test compares the data starting at a particular offset
in the file with a byte value, a string or a numeric value.
If the test succeeds, a message is printed.
The line consists of the following fields:
.Bl -tag -width ".Dv message"
.It Dv offset
A number specifying the offset (in bytes) into the file of the data
which is to be tested.
This offset can be a negative number if it is:
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
The first direct offset of the magic entry (at continuation level 0),
in which case it is interpreted an offset from end end of the file
going backwards.
This works only when a file descriptor to the file is a available and it
is a regular file.
.It
A continuation offset relative to the end of the last up-level field
.Dv ( \*[Am] ) .
.El
.It Dv type
The type of the data to be tested.
The possible values are:
.Bl -tag -width ".Dv lestring16"
.It Dv byte
A one-byte value.
.It Dv short
A two-byte value in this machine's native byte order.
.It Dv long
A four-byte value in this machine's native byte order.
.It Dv quad
An eight-byte value in this machine's native byte order.
.It Dv float
A 32-bit single precision IEEE floating point number in this machine's native byte order.
.It Dv double
A 64-bit double precision IEEE floating point number in this machine's native byte order.
.It Dv string
A string of bytes.
The string type specification can be optionally followed
by /[WwcCtbT]*.
The
.Dq W
flag compacts whitespace in the target, which must
contain at least one whitespace character.
If the magic has
.Dv n
consecutive blanks, the target needs at least
.Dv n
consecutive blanks to match.
The
.Dq w
flag treats every blank in the magic as an optional blank.
The
.Dq c
flag specifies case insensitive matching: lower case
characters in the magic match both lower and upper case characters in the
target, whereas upper case characters in the magic only match upper case
characters in the target.
The
.Dq C
flag specifies case insensitive matching: upper case
characters in the magic match both lower and upper case characters in the
target, whereas lower case characters in the magic only match upper case
characters in the target.
To do a complete case insensitive match, specify both
.Dq c
and
.Dq C .
The
.Dq t
flag forces the test to be done for text files, while the
.Dq b
flag forces the test to be done for binary files.
The
.Dq T
flag causes the string to be trimmed, i.e. leading and trailing whitespace
is deleted before the string is printed.
.It Dv pstring
A Pascal-style string where the first byte/short/int is interpreted as the
unsigned length.
The length defaults to byte and can be specified as a modifier.
The following modifiers are supported:
.Bl -tag -compact -width B
.It B
A byte length (default).
.It H
A 2 byte big endian length.
.It h
A 2 byte little endian length.
.It L
A 4 byte big endian length.
.It l
A 4 byte little endian length.
.It J
The length includes itself in its count.
.El
The string is not NUL terminated.
.Dq J
is used rather than the more
valuable
.Dq I
because this type of length is a feature of the JPEG
format.
.It Dv date
A four-byte value interpreted as a UNIX date.
.It Dv qdate
A eight-byte value interpreted as a UNIX date.
.It Dv ldate
A four-byte value interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as
local time rather than UTC.
.It Dv qldate
An eight-byte value interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as
local time rather than UTC.
.It Dv qwdate
An eight-byte value interpreted as a Windows-style date.
.It Dv beid3
A 32-bit ID3 length in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv beshort
A two-byte value in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv belong
A four-byte value in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv bequad
An eight-byte value in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv befloat
A 32-bit single precision IEEE floating point number in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv bedouble
A 64-bit double precision IEEE floating point number in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv bedate
A four-byte value in big-endian byte order,
interpreted as a Unix date.
.It Dv beqdate
An eight-byte value in big-endian byte order,
interpreted as a Unix date.
.It Dv beldate
A four-byte value in big-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as local time rather
than UTC.
.It Dv beqldate
An eight-byte value in big-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as local time rather
than UTC.
.It Dv beqwdate
An eight-byte value in big-endian byte order,
interpreted as a Windows-style date.
.It Dv bestring16
A two-byte unicode (UCS16) string in big-endian byte order.
.It Dv leid3
A 32-bit ID3 length in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv leshort
A two-byte value in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv lelong
A four-byte value in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv lequad
An eight-byte value in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv lefloat
A 32-bit single precision IEEE floating point number in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv ledouble
A 64-bit double precision IEEE floating point number in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv ledate
A four-byte value in little-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX date.
.It Dv leqdate
An eight-byte value in little-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX date.
.It Dv leldate
A four-byte value in little-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as local time rather
than UTC.
.It Dv leqldate
An eight-byte value in little-endian byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as local time rather
than UTC.
.It Dv leqwdate
An eight-byte value in little-endian byte order,
interpreted as a Windows-style date.
.It Dv lestring16
A two-byte unicode (UCS16) string in little-endian byte order.
.It Dv melong
A four-byte value in middle-endian (PDP-11) byte order.
.It Dv medate
A four-byte value in middle-endian (PDP-11) byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX date.
.It Dv meldate
A four-byte value in middle-endian (PDP-11) byte order,
interpreted as a UNIX-style date, but interpreted as local time rather
than UTC.
.It Dv indirect
Starting at the given offset, consult the magic database again.
The offset of the
.Dv indirect
magic is by default absolute in the file, but one can specify
.Dv /r
to indicate that the offset is relative from the beginning of the entry.
.It Dv name
Define a
.Dq named
magic instance that can be called from another
.Dv use
magic entry, like a subroutine call.
Named instance direct magic offsets are relative to the offset of the
previous matched entry, but indirect offsets are relative to the beginning
of the file as usual.
Named magic entries always match.
.It Dv use
Recursively call the named magic starting from the current offset.
If the name of the referenced begins with a
.Dv ^
then the endianness of the magic is switched; if the magic mentioned
.Dv leshort
for example,
it is treated as
.Dv beshort
and vice versa.
This is useful to avoid duplicating the rules for different endianness.
.It Dv regex
A regular expression match in extended POSIX regular expression syntax
(like egrep).
Regular expressions can take exponential time to process, and their
performance is hard to predict, so their use is discouraged.
When used in production environments, their performance
should be carefully checked.
The size of the string to search should also be limited by specifying
.Dv /<length> ,
to avoid performance issues scanning long files.
The type specification can also be optionally followed by
.Dv /[c][s][l] .
The
.Dq c
flag makes the match case insensitive, while the
.Dq s
flag update the offset to the start offset of the match, rather than the end.
The
.Dq l
modifier, changes the limit of length to mean number of lines instead of a
byte count.
Lines are delimited by the platforms native line delimiter.
When a line count is specified, an implicit byte count also computed assuming
each line is 80 characters long.
If neither a byte or line count is specified, the search is limited automatically
to 8KiB.
.Dv ^
and
.Dv $
match the beginning and end of individual lines, respectively,
not beginning and end of file.
.It Dv search
A literal string search starting at the given offset.
The same modifier flags can be used as for string patterns.
The search expression must contain the range in the form
.Dv /number,
that is the number of positions at which the match will be
attempted, starting from the start offset.
This is suitable for
searching larger binary expressions with variable offsets, using
.Dv \e
escapes for special characters.
The order of modifier and number is not relevant.
.It Dv default
This is intended to be used with the test
.Em x
(which is always true) and it has no type.
It matches when no other test at that continuation level has matched before.
Clearing that matched tests for a continuation level, can be done using the
.Dv clear
test.
.It Dv clear
This test is always true and clears the match flag for that continuation level.
It is intended to be used with the
.Dv default
test.
.El
.Pp
For compatibility with the Single
.Ux
Standard, the type specifiers
.Dv dC
and
.Dv d1
are equivalent to
.Dv byte ,
the type specifiers
.Dv uC
and
.Dv u1
are equivalent to
.Dv ubyte ,
the type specifiers
.Dv dS
and
.Dv d2
are equivalent to
.Dv short ,
the type specifiers
.Dv uS
and
.Dv u2
are equivalent to
.Dv ushort ,
the type specifiers
.Dv dI ,
.Dv dL ,
and
.Dv d4
are equivalent to
.Dv long ,
the type specifiers
.Dv uI ,
.Dv uL ,
and
.Dv u4
are equivalent to
.Dv ulong ,
the type specifier
.Dv d8
is equivalent to
.Dv quad ,
the type specifier
.Dv u8
is equivalent to
.Dv uquad ,
and the type specifier
.Dv s
is equivalent to
.Dv string .
In addition, the type specifier
.Dv dQ
is equivalent to
.Dv quad
and the type specifier
.Dv uQ
is equivalent to
.Dv uquad .
.Pp
Each top-level magic pattern (see below for an explanation of levels)
is classified as text or binary according to the types used.
Types
.Dq regex
and
.Dq search
are classified as text tests, unless non-printable characters are used
in the pattern.
All other tests are classified as binary.
A top-level
pattern is considered to be a test text when all its patterns are text
patterns; otherwise, it is considered to be a binary pattern.
When
matching a file, binary patterns are tried first; if no match is
found, and the file looks like text, then its encoding is determined
and the text patterns are tried.
.Pp
The numeric types may optionally be followed by
.Dv \*[Am]
and a numeric value,
to specify that the value is to be AND'ed with the
numeric value before any comparisons are done.
Prepending a
.Dv u
to the type indicates that ordered comparisons should be unsigned.
.It Dv test
The value to be compared with the value from the file.
If the type is
numeric, this value
is specified in C form; if it is a string, it is specified as a C string
with the usual escapes permitted (e.g. \en for new-line).
.Pp
Numeric values
may be preceded by a character indicating the operation to be performed.
It may be
.Dv = ,
to specify that the value from the file must equal the specified value,
.Dv \*[Lt] ,
to specify that the value from the file must be less than the specified
value,
.Dv \*[Gt] ,
to specify that the value from the file must be greater than the specified
value,
.Dv \*[Am] ,
to specify that the value from the file must have set all of the bits
that are set in the specified value,
.Dv ^ ,
to specify that the value from the file must have clear any of the bits
that are set in the specified value, or
.Dv ~ ,
the value specified after is negated before tested.
.Dv x ,
to specify that any value will match.
If the character is omitted, it is assumed to be
.Dv = .
Operators
.Dv \*[Am] ,
.Dv ^ ,
and
.Dv ~
don't work with floats and doubles.
The operator
.Dv !\&
specifies that the line matches if the test does
.Em not
succeed.
.Pp
Numeric values are specified in C form; e.g.
.Dv 13
is decimal,
.Dv 013
is octal, and
.Dv 0x13
is hexadecimal.
.Pp
Numeric operations are not performed on date types, instead the numeric
value is interpreted as an offset.
.Pp
For string values, the string from the
file must match the specified string.
The operators
.Dv = ,
.Dv \*[Lt]
and
.Dv \*[Gt]
(but not
.Dv \*[Am] )
can be applied to strings.
The length used for matching is that of the string argument
in the magic file.
This means that a line can match any non-empty string (usually used to
then print the string), with
.Em \*[Gt]\e0
(because all non-empty strings are greater than the empty string).
.Pp
Dates are treated as numerical values in the respective internal
representation.
.Pp
The special test
.Em x
always evaluates to true.
.It Dv message
The message to be printed if the comparison succeeds.
If the string contains a
.Xr printf 3
format specification, the value from the file (with any specified masking
performed) is printed using the message as the format string.
If the string begins with
.Dq \eb ,
the message printed is the remainder of the string with no whitespace
added before it: multiple matches are normally separated by a single
space.
.El
.Pp
An APPLE 4+4 character APPLE creator and type can be specified as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
!:apple CREATYPE
.Ed
.Pp
A MIME type is given on a separate line, which must be the next
non-blank or comment line after the magic line that identifies the
file type, and has the following format:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
!:mime MIMETYPE
.Ed
.Pp
i.e. the literal string
.Dq !:mime
followed by the MIME type.
.Pp
An optional strength can be supplied on a separate line which refers to
the current magic description using the following format:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
!:strength OP VALUE
.Ed
.Pp
The operand
.Dv OP
can be:
.Dv + ,
.Dv - ,
.Dv * ,
or
.Dv /
and
.Dv VALUE
is a constant between 0 and 255.
This constant is applied using the specified operand
to the currently computed default magic strength.
.Pp
Some file formats contain additional information which is to be printed
along with the file type or need additional tests to determine the true
file type.
These additional tests are introduced by one or more
.Em \*[Gt]
characters preceding the offset.
The number of
.Em \*[Gt]
on the line indicates the level of the test; a line with no
.Em \*[Gt]
at the beginning is considered to be at level 0.
Tests are arranged in a tree-like hierarchy:
if the test on a line at level
.Em n
succeeds, all following tests at level
.Em n+1
are performed, and the messages printed if the tests succeed, until a line
with level
.Em n
(or less) appears.
For more complex files, one can use empty messages to get just the
"if/then" effect, in the following way:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Lt]0x40 MS-DOS executable
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f extended PC executable (e.g., MS Windows)
.Ed
.Pp
Offsets do not need to be constant, but can also be read from the file
being examined.
If the first character following the last
.Em \*[Gt]
is a
.Em \&(
then the string after the parenthesis is interpreted as an indirect offset.
That means that the number after the parenthesis is used as an offset in
the file.
The value at that offset is read, and is used again as an offset
in the file.
Indirect offsets are of the form:
.Em (( x [[.,][bBcCeEfFgGhHiIlmsSqQ]][+\-][ y ]) .
The value of
.Em x
is used as an offset in the file.
A byte, id3 length, short or long is read at that offset depending on the
.Em [bBcCeEfFgGhHiIlmsSqQ]
type specifier.
The value is treated as signed if
.Dq ,
is specified or unsigned if
.Dq .
is specified.
The capitalized types interpret the number as a big endian
value, whereas the small letter versions interpret the number as a little
endian value;
the
.Em m
type interprets the number as a middle endian (PDP-11) value.
To that number the value of
.Em y
is added and the result is used as an offset in the file.
The default type if one is not specified is long.
The following types are recognized:
.Bl -column -offset indent "Type" "Half/Short" "Little" "Size"
.It Sy Type Sy Mnemonic Sy Endian Sy Size
.It bcBc Byte/Char N/A 1
.It efg Double Little 8
.It EFG Double Big 8
.It hs Half/Short Little 2
.It HS Half/Short Big 2
.It i ID3 Little 4
.It I ID3 Big 4
.It m Middle Middle 4
.It q Quad Little 8
.It Q Quad Big 8
.El
.Pp
That way variable length structures can be examined:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# MS Windows executables are also valid MS-DOS executables
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Lt]0x40 MZ executable (MS-DOS)
# skip the whole block below if it is not an extended executable
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string PE\e0\e0 PE executable (MS-Windows)
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string LX\e0\e0 LX executable (OS/2)
.Ed
.Pp
This strategy of examining has a drawback: you must make sure that you
eventually print something, or users may get empty output (such as when
there is neither PE\e0\e0 nor LE\e0\e0 in the above example).
.Pp
If this indirect offset cannot be used directly, simple calculations are
possible: appending
.Em [+-*/%\*[Am]|^]number
inside parentheses allows one to modify
the value read from the file before it is used as an offset:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# MS Windows executables are also valid MS-DOS executables
0 string MZ
# sometimes, the value at 0x18 is less that 0x40 but there's still an
# extended executable, simply appended to the file
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Lt]0x40
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](4.s*512) leshort 0x014c COFF executable (MS-DOS, DJGPP)
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](4.s*512) leshort !0x014c MZ executable (MS-DOS)
.Ed
.Pp
Sometimes you do not know the exact offset as this depends on the length or
position (when indirection was used before) of preceding fields.
You can specify an offset relative to the end of the last up-level
field using
.Sq \*[Am]
as a prefix to the offset:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string PE\e0\e0 PE executable (MS-Windows)
# immediately following the PE signature is the CPU type
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Am]0 leshort 0x14c for Intel 80386
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Am]0 leshort 0x184 for DEC Alpha
.Ed
.Pp
Indirect and relative offsets can be combined:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Lt]0x40
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](4.s*512) leshort !0x014c MZ executable (MS-DOS)
# if it's not COFF, go back 512 bytes and add the offset taken
# from byte 2/3, which is yet another way of finding the start
# of the extended executable
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Am](2.s-514) string LE LE executable (MS Windows VxD driver)
.Ed
.Pp
Or the other way around:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string LE\e0\e0 LE executable (MS-Windows)
# at offset 0x80 (-4, since relative offsets start at the end
# of the up-level match) inside the LE header, we find the absolute
# offset to the code area, where we look for a specific signature
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt](\*[Am]0x7c.l+0x26) string UPX \eb, UPX compressed
.Ed
.Pp
Or even both!
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string LE\e0\e0 LE executable (MS-Windows)
# at offset 0x58 inside the LE header, we find the relative offset
# to a data area where we look for a specific signature
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Am](\*[Am]0x54.l-3) string UNACE \eb, ACE self-extracting archive
.Ed
.Pp
If you have to deal with offset/length pairs in your file, even the
second value in a parenthesized expression can be taken from the file itself,
using another set of parentheses.
Note that this additional indirect offset is always relative to the
start of the main indirect offset.
.Bd -literal -offset indent
0 string MZ
\*[Gt]0x18 leshort \*[Gt]0x3f
\*[Gt]\*[Gt](0x3c.l) string PE\e0\e0 PE executable (MS-Windows)
# search for the PE section called ".idata"...
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Am]0xf4 search/0x140 .idata
# ...and go to the end of it, calculated from start+length;
# these are located 14 and 10 bytes after the section name
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt]\*[Gt](\*[Am]0xe.l+(-4)) string PK\e3\e4 \eb, ZIP self-extracting archive
.Ed
.Pp
If you have a list of known values at a particular continuation level,
and you want to provide a switch-like default case:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
# clear that continuation level match
\*[Gt]18 clear
\*[Gt]18 lelong 1 one
\*[Gt]18 lelong 2 two
\*[Gt]18 default x
# print default match
\*[Gt]\*[Gt]18 lelong x unmatched 0x%x
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr file 1
\- the command that reads this file.
.Sh BUGS
The formats
.Dv long ,
.Dv belong ,
.Dv lelong ,
.Dv melong ,
.Dv short ,
.Dv beshort ,
and
.Dv leshort
do not depend on the length of the C data types
.Dv short
and
.Dv long
on the platform, even though the Single
.Ux
Specification implies that they do. However, as OS X Mountain Lion has
passed the Single
.Ux
Specification validation suite, and supplies a version of
.Xr file 1
in which they do not depend on the sizes of the C data types and that is
built for a 64-bit environment in which
.Dv long
is 8 bytes rather than 4 bytes, presumably the validation suite does not
test whether, for example
.Dv long
refers to an item with the same size as the C data type
.Dv long .
There should probably be
.Dv type
names
.Dv int8 ,
.Dv uint8 ,
.Dv int16 ,
.Dv uint16 ,
.Dv int32 ,
.Dv uint32 ,
.Dv int64 ,
and
.Dv uint64 ,
and specified-byte-order variants of them,
to make it clearer that those types have specified widths.
.\"
.\" From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
.\" Newsgroups: net.bugs.usg
.\" Subject: /etc/magic's format isn't well documented
.\" Message-ID: <2752@sun.uucp>
.\" Date: 3 Sep 85 08:19:07 GMT
.\" Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
.\" Lines: 136
.\"
.\" Here's a manual page for the format accepted by the "file" made by adding
.\" the changes I posted to the S5R2 version.
.\"
.\" Modified for Ian Darwin's version of the file command.