[Magic-dev] ~/.magic breaks UNIX 'file' command on OS X

[Philippe Pouliquen]

Hi David,

> I've discovered that a .magic file sitting in one's home directory can 
> break the UNIX 'file' command which is frequently used to check the 
> contents of libraries during compiles/builds.

Yep, this is a known issue.  The work-around is to define an alias for the 
'file' command.  I have the following line in my .bashrc (because I use 
bash as my shell):

alias file="/usr/bin/file -m /usr/share/misc/magic"

You may need to customize the path for your own environment.

Perhaps Tim Edwards could add a "feature" so that Magic looks for .magic 
or .magicrc, that way we wouldn't need to worry about the 'file' command, 
while keeping things backwards compatible.

Philippe Pouliquen
The Johns Hopkins University