NAME¶
update-desktop-database - Build cache database of MIME types handled by desktop
files
SYNOPSIS¶
update-desktop-database [-q|--quiet] [-v|--verbose] [DIRECTORY...]
DESCRIPTION¶
The
update-desktop-database program is a tool to build a cache database
of the MIME types handled by desktop files.
The cache database contains the list of MIME types that can be handled by
desktop files, as well as, for each MIME type, a list of desktop files that
can handle this MIME type. This cache database ease the work of applications
that need to find an application that can open a document of a specific MIME
type: those applications will not have to parse all the desktop files existing
on the system, and can instead parse this cache database.
If no
DIRECTORY is specified as argument, the desktop files that will be
processed are the ones installed in
$XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications.
If both the
--quiet and
--verbose options are used, then
--verbose will be ignored.
OPTIONS¶
The following options are supported:
- -q, --quiet
- Do not display any information about processing and updating
progress.
- -v, --verbose
- Display more information about processing and updating progress.
NOTES¶
If an invalid MIME type is met, it will be ignored and the creation of the cache
database will continue.
The format of the cache database is a simple desktop entry format, with a
MIME Cache group, containing one key per MIME type. The key name is the
MIME type, and the key value is the list of desktop file that can handle this
MIME type.
The order of the desktop files found for a MIME type is not significant.
Therefore, an external mechanism must be used to determine what is the
preferred desktop file for a MIME type.
EXAMPLE¶
Here is a simple example of a cache database:
-
[MIME Cache]
application/x-shellscript=gedit.desktop;
text/plain=gedit.desktop;gvim.desktop;
video/webm=totem.desktop;
This cache database is created with three desktop files, each containing a
MimeType key:
-
gedit.desktop: MimeType=text/plain;application/x-shellscript;
gvim.desktop: MimeType=text/plain;
totem.desktop: MimeType=video/webm;
FILES¶
$XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications/mimeinfo.cache
- This file is the cache database created by
update-desktop-database.
BUGS¶
If you find bugs in the
update-desktop-database program, please report
these on
https://bugs.freedesktop.org.