Unknown files

When I type the command <file> I find ‘’‘–apple’‘’ in my bin folder.

Can somebody please explain me what this means ?

Usage: file [-bcCdEhikLlNnprsSvzZ0] [--apple] [--extension] [--mime-encoding]
        [--mime-type] [-e <testname>] [-F <separator>]  [-f <namefile>]
        [-m <magicfiles>] [-P <parameter=value>] [--exclude-quiet]
        <file> ...
   file -C [-m <magicfiles>]
   file [--help]

File is a command used to identify file types. That message says you used it improperly and gives the usage format and available options.

Try “man file” for detailed info on usage and what each option does.

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I’m guessing that file isn’t the command you are interested in. Perhaps you wanted find /usr/bin/?

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What is does “FIFOs” (pipes) means running a filetest with the man command in the <sys/stat.h>.

FIFO stands for First In, First Out. It specifies how the pipe works. There is also LIFO mode (Last In, First Out).

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In which context, are you reading a manual, tutorial etc? What do you want to achieve?
If you want to know more about the attribute --apple in file command you can search in man page this way:
man file |grep -i -B 2 -C 10 "apple"

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Wouw. That opened up Pandoras box of Open BSD when I typed the command into the Terminal. :exploding_head:Took me a while to read it all over. I read a lot of information today. I think I need to sleep on that one.

Thank you :partying_face:

Thats nice of you giving me a clear example. I just read the manual when I typed in the < man file > before. And I felt that it was like reading a manual of how to navigate an UFO. But very interesting stuff.

Now trying this of your example makes me curious becourse there is a TODO.

  --apple
         Causes the file command to output the file type and creator code as
         used by older MacOS versions.  The code consists of eight letters,
         the first describing the file type, the latter the creator.  This
         option works properly only for file formats that have the apple-
         style output defined.

 -b, --brief
         Do not prepend filenames to output lines (brief mode).

 -C, --compile
         Write a magic.mgc output file that contains a pre-parsed version of
         the magic file or directory.

I have an older iMac (2011) for making music and a Mac book 2013 I used before. And had a suspicious of “Visitors” from outer space on them as there were some strange cases of behavior. But I do not know anything about Machine coding. Only that this machine where I have installed Fedora on had no contact to an Appleproduct.

Is the applesoftware incorporated in Fedora or am I just guessing here ?

But How to search for apple flags and what does it means ?

What it the Magic-file and how to use it ?

( Should I make a new topic for this ?)

FILE(1)                               BSD General Commands Manual                              FILE(1)

NAME
file — determine file type

SYNOPSIS
file [-bcdEhiklLNnprsSvzZ0] [–apple] [–exclude-quiet] [–extension] [–mime-encoding]
[–mime-type] [-e testname] [-F separator] [-f namefile] [-m magicfiles] [-P name=value]
file …
file -C [-m magicfiles]
file [–help]

DESCRIPTION
This manual page documents version 5.39 of the file command.

 file tests each argument in an attempt to classify it.  There are three sets of tests, performed
 in this order: filesystem tests, magic tests, and language tests.  The first test that succeeds
 causes the file type to be printed.

 The type printed will usually contain one of the words text (the file contains only printing
 characters and a few common control characters and is probably safe to read on an ASCII termi‐
 nal), executable (the file contains the result of compiling a program in a form understandable to
 some UNIX kernel or another), or data meaning anything else (data is usually “binary” or non-
 printable).  Exceptions are well-known file formats (core files, tar archives) that are known to
 contain binary data.  When modifying magic files or the program itself, make sure to preserve
 these keywords.  Users depend on knowing that all the readable files in a directory have the word
 “text” printed.  Don't do as Berkeley did and change “shell commands text” to “shell script”.

 The filesystem tests are based on examining the return from a stat(2) system call.  The program
 checks to see if the file is empty, or if it's some sort of special file.  Any known file types
 appropriate to the system you are running on (sockets, symbolic links, or named pipes (FIFOs) on
 those systems that implement them) are intuited if they are defined in the system header file
 <sys/stat.h>.

 The magic tests are used to check for files with data in particular fixed formats.  The canonical
 example of this is a binary executable (compiled program) a.out file, whose format is defined in
 <elf.h>, <a.out.h> and possibly <exec.h> in the standard include directory.  These files have a
 “magic number” stored in a particular place near the beginning of the file that tells the UNIX
 operating system that the file is a binary executable, and which of several types thereof.  The
 concept of a “magic” has been applied by extension to data files.  Any file with some invariant
 identifier at a small fixed offset into the file can usually be described in this way.  The in‐
 formation identifying these files is read from the compiled magic file /usr/share/misc/magic.mgc,
 or the files in the directory /usr/share/misc/magic if the compiled file does not exist.  In ad‐
 dition, if $HOME/.magic.mgc or $HOME/.magic exists, it will be used in preference to the system
 magic files.

 If a file does not match any of the entries in the magic file, it is examined to see if it seems
 to be a text file.  ASCII, ISO-8859-x, non-ISO 8-bit extended-ASCII character sets (such as those
 used on Macintosh and IBM PC systems), UTF-8-encoded Unicode, UTF-16-encoded Unicode, and EBCDIC
 character sets can be distinguished by the different ranges and sequences of bytes that consti‐
 tute printable text in each set.  If a file passes any of these tests, its character set is re‐
 ported.  ASCII, ISO-8859-x, UTF-8, and extended-ASCII files are identified as “text” because they
 will be mostly readable on nearly any terminal; UTF-16 and EBCDIC are only “character data” be‐
 cause, while they contain text, it is text that will require translation before it can be read.
 In addition, file will attempt to determine other characteristics of text-type files.  If the
 lines of a file are terminated by CR, CRLF, or NEL, instead of the Unix-standard LF, this will be
 reported.  Files that contain embedded escape sequences or overstriking will also be identified.

 Once file has determined the character set used in a text-type file, it will attempt to determine
 in what language the file is written.  The language tests look for particular strings (cf.
 <names.h>) that can appear anywhere in the first few blocks of a file.  For example, the keyword
 .br indicates that the file is most likely a troff(1) input file, just as the keyword struct in‐
 dicates a C program.  These tests are less reliable than the previous two groups, so they are
 performed last.  The language test routines also test for some miscellany (such as tar(1) ar‐
 chives, JSON files).

 Any file that cannot be identified as having been written in any of the character sets listed
 above is simply said to be “data”.

OPTIONS
Manual page file(1) line 1 (press h for help or q to quit)

Try not to be suspicious Jonas. Nothing good comes from being suspicious. There is an old saying, “always assume the best”.

It was probably just a computer glitch. Or at worst, someone close to you was playing a trick on you. It is best to just forget about it and move on.

2 Likes

Thank you mate for enlighten me. I did have some bad experiences in the past which follows me in the shadows. But true that saying. Beleaving in light is becoming light :heart_eyes:

Please, let’s not devolve into a religious discussion on this forum. That is way off topic

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definetly not. Fedora is the only God :innocent: