## wxMimeTypesManager

This class allows the application to retrieve the information about all known MIME types from a system-specific location and the filename extensions to the MIME types and vice versa. After initialization the functions wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromMimeType and wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromExtension may be called: they will return a wxFileType object which may be further queried for file description, icon and other attributes.

Windows: MIME type information is stored in the registry and no additional initialization is needed.

Unix: MIME type information is stored in the files mailcap and mime.types (system-wide) and .mailcap and .mime.types in the current user's home directory: all of these files are searched for and loaded if found by default. However, additional functions wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMailcap and wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMimeTypes are provided to load additional files.

If GNOME or KDE desktop environment is installed, then wxMimeTypesManager gathers MIME information from respective files (e.g. .kdelnk files under KDE).

NB: Currently, wxMimeTypesManager is limited to reading MIME type information but it will support modifying it as well in future versions.

Global objects

Global instance of wxMimeTypesManager is always available. It is defined as follows:

    wxMimeTypesManager *wxTheMimeTypesManager;

It is recommended to use this instance instead of creating your own because gathering MIME information may take quite a long time on Unix systems.

Derived from

No base class.

Include files

<wx/mimetype.h>

See also

wxFileType

Function groups

Helper functions
Constructor and destructor
Query database
Initialization functions
wxMimeTypesManager::wxMimeTypesManager
wxMimeTypesManager::~wxMimeTypesManager
wxMimeTypesManager::AddFallbacks
wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromExtension
wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromMimeType
wxMimeTypesManager::IsOfType
wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMailcap
wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMimeTypes

### Helper functions

All of these functions are static (i.e. don't need a wxMimeTypesManager object to call them) and provide some useful operations for string representations of MIME types. Their usage is recommended instead of directly working with MIME types using wxString functions.

IsOfType

### Constructor and destructor

NB: You won't normally need to use more than one wxMimeTypesManager object in a program.

wxMimeTypesManager
~wxMimeTypesManager

### Query database

These functions are the heart of this class: they allow to find a file type object from either file extension or MIME type. If the function is successful, it returns a pointer to the wxFileType object which must be deleted by the caller, otherwise `NULL` will be returned.

GetFileTypeFromMimeType
GetFileTypeFromExtension

### Initialization functions

Unix: These functions may be used to load additional files (except for the default ones which are loaded automatically) containing MIME information in either mailcap(5) or mime.types(5) format.

ReadMailcap
ReadMimeTypes
AddFallbacks

### wxMimeTypesManager::wxMimeTypesManager

wxMimeTypesManager()

Constructor puts the object in the "working" state, no additional initialization are needed - but ReadXXX may be used to load additional mailcap/mime.types files.

### wxMimeTypesManager::~wxMimeTypesManager

~wxMimeTypesManager()

Destructor is not virtual, so this class should not be derived from.

### wxMimeTypesManager::AddFallbacks

void AddFallbacks(const wxFileTypeInfo *fallbacks)

This function may be used to provide hard-wired fallbacks for the MIME types and extensions that might not be present in the system MIME database.

Please see the typetest sample for an example of using it.

### wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromExtension

wxFileType* GetFileTypeFromExtension(const wxString& extension)

Gather information about the files with given extension and return the corresponding wxFileType object or `NULL` if the extension is unknown.

The extension parameter may have, or not, the leading dot, if it has it, it is stripped automatically. It must not however be empty.

### wxMimeTypesManager::GetFileTypeFromMimeType

wxFileType* GetFileTypeFromMimeType(const wxString& mimeType)

Gather information about the files with given MIME type and return the corresponding wxFileType object or `NULL` if the MIME type is unknown.

### wxMimeTypesManager::IsOfType

bool IsOfType(const wxString& mimeType, const wxString& wildcard)

This function returns true if either the given mimeType is exactly the same as wildcard or if it has the same category and the subtype of wildcard is '*'. Note that the '*' wildcard is not allowed in mimeType itself.

The comparison don by this function is case insensitive so it is not necessary to convert the strings to the same case before calling it.

### wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMailcap

bool ReadMailcap(const wxString& filename, bool fallback = false)

Load additional file containing information about MIME types and associated information in mailcap format. See metamail(1) and mailcap(5) for more information.

fallback parameter may be used to load additional mailcap files without overriding the settings found in the standard files: normally, entries from files loaded with ReadMailcap will override the entries from files loaded previously (and the standard ones are loaded in the very beginning), but this will not happen if this parameter is set to true (default is false).

The return value is true if there were no errors in the file or false otherwise.

### wxMimeTypesManager::ReadMimeTypes

bool ReadMimeTypes(const wxString& filename)

Load additional file containing information about MIME types and associated information in mime.types file format. See metamail(1) and mailcap(5) for more information.

The return value is true if there were no errors in the file or false otherwise.