Human-friendly MIME type descriptions for Elixir.
This library provides embedded MIME type descriptions sourced from the freedesktop.org shared-mime-info database. The data is compiled directly into the library, so no runtime fetching is required.
Usage
# Get description for a specific MIME type
MimeDescription.get("application/pdf")
#=> {:ok, "PDF document"}
# Handle MIME types with parameters (charset, boundary, etc.)
MimeDescription.get_from_header("text/plain; charset=utf-8")
#=> {:ok, "Plain text document"}
# Get description with fallback
MimeDescription.get("unknown/type")
#=> {:error, :not_found}Updating the MIME database
The MIME data is embedded at compile time. To update it with the latest from freedesktop.org, run:
mix mime_description.generateThis task will check if the remote database has changed and regenerate the embedded data module if needed.
Summary
Functions
Extract the base MIME type from a header value, removing any parameters.
Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type.
Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type, raising if not found.
Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type from a raw header value.
Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type from a raw header value, returning the cleaned MIME type as a fallback if not found.
Get the description for a MIME type with a default fallback.
Functions
Extract the base MIME type from a header value, removing any parameters.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.extract_mime_type("text/plain; charset=utf-8")
"text/plain"
iex> MimeDescription.extract_mime_type("application/pdf;name=document.pdf")
"application/pdf"
iex> MimeDescription.extract_mime_type(" text/html ; charset=ISO-8859-1 ")
"text/html"Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type.
Returns {:ok, description} if found, or {:error, :not_found} if not found.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.get("application/pdf")
{:ok, "PDF document"}
iex> MimeDescription.get("text/plain")
{:ok, "Plain text document"}
iex> MimeDescription.get("unknown/type")
{:error, :not_found}Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type, raising if not found.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.get!("application/pdf")
"PDF document"
iex> MimeDescription.get!("unknown/type")
** (KeyError) MIME type not found: "unknown/type"Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type from a raw header value.
This function handles MIME types that may include parameters like charset, boundary, etc. It extracts the base MIME type and looks up its description.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header("text/plain; charset=utf-8")
{:ok, "Plain text document"}
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header("application/pdf; name=document.pdf")
{:ok, "PDF document"}
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header("text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1")
{:ok, "HTML document"}
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header("multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary")
{:ok, "multipart message"}
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header("unknown/type; param=value")
{:error, :not_found}Get the human-friendly description for a MIME type from a raw header value, returning the cleaned MIME type as a fallback if not found.
This is useful when you want to display something reasonable even for unknown types.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header_with_fallback("text/plain; charset=utf-8")
"Plain text document"
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header_with_fallback("application/x-custom; param=value")
"application/x-custom"
iex> MimeDescription.get_from_header_with_fallback("unknown/type; charset=utf-8", "Unknown file")
"Unknown file"Get the description for a MIME type with a default fallback.
Examples
iex> MimeDescription.get_with_default("application/pdf", "Unknown")
"PDF document"
iex> MimeDescription.get_with_default("unknown/type", "Unknown")
"Unknown"