Hello Keith,
This is a somewhat older thread:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool-patches/2005-12/msg00102.html
with an (unfortunately; sorry!) still-pending issue:
* Keith MARSHALL wrote on Thu, Dec 22, 2005 at 06:17:57PM CET:
Ralf Wildenhues wrote, quoting Bob Frieshahn:
>> Since there is no standard 'file' command provided with MSYS/MinGW,
>> is this safe?
>
> OK, so the only remaining case really is MSYS/MinGW itself. Do we
> know of win32 installations that provide a `file' command that does
> not do what we expect? Note that not having `file' available would
> be fine here, but one that does something completely unrelated, for
> example, would hurt.
While it is true that MSYS/MinGW doesn't include a `file' command as
standard, it is perfectly feasible to use a `foreign' implementation
with MSYS; e.g. I have installed the GnuWin32 v4.16 implementation
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=23617&package_id=18878
into my `/usr/local' MSYS tree. Not sure how robust it is; e.g. it
misidentifies manpage sources as `MKS Spell hash (old format)', and
its own manpage refers to incorrect locations for the `magic' files,
but it does seem to identify executables, shell scripts, and `*.a'
or `*.dll' libraries reasonably well.
I installed above `file' program, but for some reasons I haven't been
able to analyze yet, I can't get it to work. Could you do me a favour
and post the literal output of `file', when applied to
- an executable file (with the .exe applied),
- a shell script,
- a DLL,
- a plain archive (*.a),
- and an import library (usually named *.dll.a).