How to find out the type of the file

Some file comes with no extension so we are unable to know what kind of application to associate with. Luckily Linux/Freebsd has a utility that can determine the file type.

file <the-file>

e.g.

$ file miami
miami: JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.02

$ file silly
silly: Zip archive data, at least v1.0 to extract

$ file Read.Me
Read.Me: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators

See Ya !!!