For installation instructions see the Section called Installing File-4.04 in Chapter 6.
File (4.04):
ftp://ftp.gw.com/mirrors/pub/unix/file/
Alternate Download Location:
ftp://gaosu.rave.org/pub/linux/lfs/
File is a utility used to determine file types.
Installed program: file
Installed library: libmagic.[a,so]
file tries to classify each given file. It does this by performing several tests: filesystem tests, magic number tests, and language tests. The first test that succeeds determines the result.
libmagic contains routines for magic number recognition, used by the file program.
File depends on: Bash, Binutils, Coreutils, Diffutils, GCC, Glibc, Grep, Make, Sed, Zlib.