A library to tell apart binary and text files using proven heuristics.

Uses the same heuristics as Subversion:

• take the first 1KB of a file

• if zero byte is found, the file is considered binary

• if less than 85% bytes are ASCII-printable, the file is considered binary

• otherwise the file is considered text

Contrary to naive implementations, file extension is not taken into account.

Usage from Clojure

Like any other Clojure library, download and put istext.jar in your CLASSPATH. Then:

(use 'istext)
(text-file? "path/to/the/file")   ; true | false
(bin-file? "path/to/the/file")    ; true | false

Usage from Java

Like any other Java library, download and put istext-stanadalone.jar in your CLASSPATH. The 'standalone' version is self contained. You don't need any other dependencies, even the Clojure is embedded.

import clojure.lang.*;
public class IsTextJavaClient {
    public static void main( String[] args ) throws Exception {
        // Load the Clojure script -- as a side effect this initializes Clojure runtime.
        RT.loadResourceScript( "istext.clj" );
        // Get a reference to the foo function.
        Var text_file = RT.var( "istext", "text-file?" );
        // Call it!
        boolean result = (Boolean) text_file.invoke( "d:/pik.bat" );
        System.out.println( result );
    }
}

Installation

Download jar and put it on your CLASSPATH.

Development

istext is built with Leiningen: lein deps lein test lein uberjar

License

Copyright (C) 2010 Piotr 'Qertoip' Włodarek. Distributed under the MIT License.