UPDATE-DESKTOP-DATABASE
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: FREEDESKTOP.ORG
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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.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- NOTES
-
- EXAMPLE
-
- FILES
-
- BUGS
-