Hi Satheesh, If U would like to do it from a C program, just execute the command (file <filename>) like someone suggested using `system`... To further proceed U have to do a `man popen`... HTH ... Narain. On Mon, 5 Jun 2000, Satheesh Kumar. N.K wrote: Hi Sachin, Sorry for not mentioning that I need to do it programmatically from a user space program.