The mimetypes module converts between a filename or URL and
the MIME type associated with the filename extension. Conversions are
provided from filename to MIME type and from MIME type to filename
extension; encodings are not supported for the latter conversion.
The module provides one class and a number of convenience functions.
The functions are the normal interface to this module, but some
applications may be interested in the class as well.
The functions described below provide the primary interface for this
module. If the module has not been initialized, they will call
init() if they rely on the information init()
sets up.
- guess_type(filename[, strict])
-
Guess the type of a file based on its filename or URL, given by
filename. The return value is a tuple
(type,
encoding) where type is None if the type can't be
guessed (missing or unknown suffix) or a string of the form
'type/subtype', usable for a MIME
header .
encoding is None for no encoding or the name of the
program used to encode (e.g. compress or gzip).
The encoding is suitable for use as a
header, not as a header.
The mappings are table driven. Encoding suffixes are case sensitive;
type suffixes are first tried case sensitively, then case
insensitively.
Optional strict is a flag specifying whether the list of known
MIME types is limited to only the official types registered
with IANA
are recognized. When strict is true (the default), only the
IANA types are supported; when strict is false, some additional
non-standard but commonly used MIME types are also recognized.
- guess_extension(type[, strict])
-
Guess the extension for a file based on its MIME type, given by
type.
The return value is a string giving a filename extension, including the
leading dot ("."). The extension is not guaranteed to have been
associated with any particular data stream, but would be mapped to the
MIME type type by guess_type(). If no extension can
be guessed for type,
None is returned.
Optional strict has the same meaning as with the
guess_type() function.
Some additional functions and data items are available for controlling
the behavior of the module.
- init([files])
-
Initialize the internal data structures. If given, files must
be a sequence of file names which should be used to augment the
default type map. If omitted, the file names to use are taken from
knownfiles. Each file named in files or
knownfiles takes precedence over those named before it.
Calling init() repeatedly is allowed.
- read_mime_types(filename)
-
Load the type map given in the file filename, if it exists. The
type map is returned as a dictionary mapping filename extensions,
including the leading dot ("."), to strings of the form
'type/subtype'. If the file filename does
not exist or cannot be read, None is returned.
- inited
-
Flag indicating whether or not the global data structures have been
initialized. This is set to true by init().
- knownfiles
-
List of type map file names commonly installed. These files are
typically named mime.types and are installed in different
locations by different packages.
- suffix_map
-
Dictionary mapping suffixes to suffixes. This is used to allow
recognition of encoded files for which the encoding and the type are
indicated by the same extension. For example, the .tgz
extension is mapped to .tar.gz to allow the encoding and type
to be recognized separately.
- encodings_map
-
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to encoding types.
- types_map
-
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to MIME types.
- common_types
-
Dictionary mapping filename extensions to non-standard, but commonly
found MIME types.
The MimeTypes class may be useful for applications which may
want more than one MIME-type database:
- class MimeTypes([filenames])
-
This class represents a MIME-types database. By default, it
provides access to the same database as the rest of this module.
The initial database is a copy of that provided by the module, and
may be extended by loading additional mime.types-style files
into the database using the read() or readfp()
methods. The mapping dictionaries may also be cleared before
loading additional data if the default data is not desired.
The optional filenames parameter can be used to cause
additional files to be loaded ``on top'' of the default database.
New in version 2.2.
Subsections
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