hfutils.utils.binary

This module provides functionality to determine whether a given file is a binary file or a text file. It does so by reading the first 1024 bytes of the file and checking for the presence of non-text characters.

Note

Inspired from https://stackoverflow.com/a/7392391/6995899

is_binary_file

hfutils.utils.binary.is_binary_file(file) → bool[source]

Check if a given file is binary.

This function reads the first 1024 bytes of the file and checks if it contains any non-text (binary) characters. It uses a predefined set of text characters to determine the nature of the file.

Parameters:

file (str) – The path to the file to be checked.

Returns:

True if the file is binary, False if it is a text file.

Return type:

bool

Raises:

FileNotFoundError – If the specified file does not exist.
IOError – If there is an error reading the file.

Example:

>>> is_binary_file('example.txt')
False
>>> is_binary_file('example.bin')
True