Introduction
This tutorial will show you how you can get MIME type of a file using PHP program. Most of the times you may need to validate or check MIME type of a file when you upload a file for various reasons, such as, for KYC purpose.
In this tutorial I have defined an array which holds almost all kinds of MIME type of files. So whenever you require to get the MIME type of a particular file then you can easily retrieve the MIME type of that file from this array.
Prerequisites
PHP 5.4 – 7.4.22
Apace http Server 2.4 (Optional)
Project Directory
It’s assumed that you have setup PHP in your system.
Now I will create a project root directory called php-file-mime anywhere in your system. I may not mention the project root directory in subsequent sections and I will assume that I am talking with respect to the project’s root directory.
Get MIME Type Of File
The following code checks the mime type for a given file name and returns the MIME type of the file. The following code is written into a file php-file-mime.php.
function mime_type($filename) {
$mime_types = array(
'txt' => 'text/plain',
'htm' => 'text/html',
'html' => 'text/html',
'css' => 'text/css',
'json' => array('application/json', 'text/json'),
'xml' => 'application/xml',
'swf' => 'application/x-shockwave-flash',
'flv' => 'video/x-flv',
'hqx' => 'application/mac-binhex40',
'cpt' => 'application/mac-compactpro',
'csv' => array('text/x-comma-separated-values', 'text/comma-separated-values', 'application/octet-stream', 'application/vnd.ms-excel', 'application/x-csv', 'text/x-csv', 'text/csv', 'application/csv', 'application/excel', 'application/vnd.msexcel'),
'bin' => 'application/macbinary',
'dms' => 'application/octet-stream',
'lha' => 'application/octet-stream',
'lzh' => 'application/octet-stream',
'exe' => array('application/octet-stream', 'application/x-msdownload'),
'class' => 'application/octet-stream',
'so' => 'application/octet-stream',
'sea' => 'application/octet-stream',
'dll' => 'application/octet-stream',
'oda' => 'application/oda',
'ps' => 'application/postscript',
'smi' => 'application/smil',
'smil' => 'application/smil',
'mif' => 'application/vnd.mif',
'wbxml' => 'application/wbxml',
'wmlc' => 'application/wmlc',
'dcr' => 'application/x-director',
'dir' => 'application/x-director',
'dxr' => 'application/x-director',
'dvi' => 'application/x-dvi',
'gtar' => 'application/x-gtar',
'gz' => 'application/x-gzip',
'php' => 'application/x-httpd-php',
'php4' => 'application/x-httpd-php',
'php3' => 'application/x-httpd-php',
'phtml' => 'application/x-httpd-php',
'phps' => 'application/x-httpd-php-source',
'js' => array('application/javascript', 'application/x-javascript'),
'sit' => 'application/x-stuffit',
'tar' => 'application/x-tar',
'tgz' => array('application/x-tar', 'application/x-gzip-compressed'),
'xhtml' => 'application/xhtml+xml',
'xht' => 'application/xhtml+xml',
'bmp' => array('image/bmp', 'image/x-windows-bmp'),
'gif' => 'image/gif',
'jpeg' => array('image/jpeg', 'image/pjpeg'),
'jpg' => array('image/jpeg', 'image/pjpeg'),
'jpe' => array('image/jpeg', 'image/pjpeg'),
'png' => array('image/png', 'image/x-png'),
'tiff' => 'image/tiff',
'tif' => 'image/tiff',
'shtml' => 'text/html',
'text' => 'text/plain',
'log' => array('text/plain', 'text/x-log'),
'rtx' => 'text/richtext',
'rtf' => 'text/rtf',
'xsl' => 'text/xml',
'docx' => 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document',
'xlsx' => 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet',
'word' => array('application/msword', 'application/octet-stream'),
'xl' => 'application/excel',
'eml' => 'message/rfc822',
// images
'png' => 'image/png',
'jpe' => 'image/jpeg',
'jpeg' => 'image/jpeg',
'jpg' => 'image/jpeg',
'gif' => 'image/gif',
'bmp' => 'image/bmp',
'ico' => 'image/vnd.microsoft.icon',
'tiff' => 'image/tiff',
'tif' => 'image/tiff',
'svg' => 'image/svg+xml',
'svgz' => 'image/svg+xml',
// archives
'zip' => array('application/x-zip', 'application/zip', 'application/x-zip-compressed'),
'rar' => 'application/x-rar-compressed',
'msi' => 'application/x-msdownload',
'cab' => 'application/vnd.ms-cab-compressed',
// audio/video
'mid' => 'audio/midi',
'midi' => 'audio/midi',
'mpga' => 'audio/mpeg',
'mp2' => 'audio/mpeg',
'mp3' => array('audio/mpeg', 'audio/mpg', 'audio/mpeg3', 'audio/mp3'),
'aif' => 'audio/x-aiff',
'aiff' => 'audio/x-aiff',
'aifc' => 'audio/x-aiff',
'ram' => 'audio/x-pn-realaudio',
'rm' => 'audio/x-pn-realaudio',
'rpm' => 'audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin',
'ra' => 'audio/x-realaudio',
'rv' => 'video/vnd.rn-realvideo',
'wav' => array('audio/x-wav', 'audio/wave', 'audio/wav'),
'mpeg' => 'video/mpeg',
'mpg' => 'video/mpeg',
'mpe' => 'video/mpeg',
'qt' => 'video/quicktime',
'mov' => 'video/quicktime',
'avi' => 'video/x-msvideo',
'movie' => 'video/x-sgi-movie',
// adobe
'pdf' => 'application/pdf',
'psd' => array('image/vnd.adobe.photoshop', 'application/x-photoshop'),
'ai' => 'application/postscript',
'eps' => 'application/postscript',
'ps' => 'application/postscript',
// ms office
'doc' => 'application/msword',
'rtf' => 'application/rtf',
'xls' => array('application/excel', 'application/vnd.ms-excel', 'application/msexcel'),
'ppt' => array('application/powerpoint', 'application/vnd.ms-powerpoint'),
// open office
'odt' => 'application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text',
'ods' => 'application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet',
);
$ext = explode('.', $filename);
$ext = strtolower(end($ext));
if (array_key_exists($ext, $mime_types)) {
return (is_array($mime_types[$ext])) ? $mime_types[$ext][0] : $mime_types[$ext];
} else if (function_exists('finfo_open')) {
if(file_exists($filename)) {
$finfo = finfo_open(FILEINFO_MIME);
$mimetype = finfo_file($finfo, $filename);
finfo_close($finfo);
return $mimetype;
}
}
return 'application/octet-stream';
}If multiple MIME types found for a particular file then the first MIME type is returned. If no MIME found for a particular file then default MIME type application/octet-stream is returned.
Usage
Here are some examples how to use the above function to get MIME type of a file:
$mime_type = mime_type('a.php');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('final.doc');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('inception.pdf');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('meeting.jpg');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('filename.xxx');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('a.csv');
echo $mime_type . "\n";
$mime_type = mime_type('a.xl');
echo $mime_type . "\n";The above code snippets will output as given in the below:
application/x-httpd-php
application/msword
application/pdf
image/jpeg
application/octet-stream
text/x-comma-separated-values
application/excel