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stwissel
Asked: 2012-07-04 20:41:40 +0800 CST

Script to find executable based on extension of a file?

  • 772

I need to create a script that returns the default app to be used for a given file extension (including the path). I had a look at the file command which can return the mime type and xdg-open which would open a file. But what I'd like to get is

myscript doc

/usr/bin/libreoffice

.or. 

myscript fun

/opt/acme/roadrunner/meepmeep

How do I do that?

bash

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I grabbed a Linux expert in the office and we found a reasonable solution:

    #!/bin/bash
EXTENSION=$1
SAMPLENAME=$HOME/~webdavhelpersample.$EXTENSION
touch $SAMPLENAME
CURMINE=$(xdg-mime query filetype $SAMPLENAME)
rm $SAMPLENAME
CURDSK=$(xdg-mime query default $CURMINE)

if [ -f /.local/share/applications/$CURDSK ]; then
    TRUEDSK=/.local/share/applications/$CURDSK
elif [ -f /usr/local/share/applications/$CURDSK ]; then
    TRUEDSK=/usr/local/share/applications/$CURDSK
elif [ -f  /usr/share/applications/$CURDSK ]; then
    TRUEDSK=/usr/share/applications/$CURDSK
else 
    echo "Sorry no executable found for $1"
    exit 1
fi

WHATTODO=$(grep "^Exec" $TRUEDSK | head -1)
echo $WHATTODO

    Once we figured that there are only 3 locations for the desktop files it was not hard anymore.

    • 1

  2. The command can be something like:

    xdg-mime query default `xdg-mime query filetype example.odp`

    Result:

    libreoffice-impress.desktop
    • 0