When I am looking at files in Linux's file explorer, each file has an icon on the left and a name on the right.
The icons represent the mimetype of the file , for example .so. .sh or .properties.


I want to present something like Linux's file explorer to my users. In connection with this, I want to show them the appropriate icon they expect to see next to each file, according to its mime type, like Linux does.

I would like to pre-assemble each of these icons and associate (map) them to their mimetypes exactly once when the program starts, rather query Linux for the icon for each and every file as I discover those files when my program starts up.

I do not know how to assemble this infornation for myself even through I can see Linux obviously knows how to do it.

I am wondering how I would go about doing this on an arbitrary but modern Linux.

Apparently, I'm dreaming a dream one should never dream:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...tion-in-ubuntu

Read the XDG Desktop Entry Specification. https://specifications.freedesktop.o...-spec-1.1.html

Two steps are required:

1) Determine the MIME type from a file's name or contents
2) Look up the desktop files installed by applications for matching MIME types

The first step is unreliable (see the "file" program's documentation). The second is expensive and may yield multiple matches. Every desktop environment has its own ways of doing this.
Ed

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I found a slightly better link:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...h-a-file-in-th

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks I did start off with that document. What I found was Linux Mint's /usr/share/icon sub directory structure corresponded only partially with the assumptions of the algorithms there. I wonder if I follow the algos and rewrite them to work on Mint if it will also work on KDE.

Basically that's what I am wondering.