Description of problem: file fails to identify perl scripts that contain a control character. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): file-5.05-3.fc15.x86_64 How reproducible: Every time Steps to Reproduce: 1. Create a trivial perl script (file.pl) containing a control character. Note to enter a ^A in vi for instance press Ctrl-v and then Ctrl-A. #!/usr/bin/perl my $string = "^A" ; 2. Determine file type with file command $ file file.pl Actual results: file.pl: data Expected results: $ file file.pl file.pl: a /usr/bin/perl script text executable Additional info: It looks like the behaviour changed between F14's file-5.04-16.fc14.x86_64 and F15's file-5.05-3.fc15.x86_64 previously the same file was identified as perl. A consequence of this is that perl scripts containing control characters are not correctly identified as perl by the rpmbuild system and so on F15 all perl requirements are lost for scripts that contain a control character. Steve.
Thanks for the report. Since file-5.05, file makes difference between text files and binary files and matches only text files as perl. This is causing problem here. I will try to find out why exactly it matches control characters in normal ASCII text as binary files.
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