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There is huge number of different formats for virtual storage files for desktop and server purposes (vmdk, qcow2, vdi, vdk, etc.). I'm writing a little script for manipulating them and would like the script to be able to distinguish between them.

Of course, it can be done via extension, but I want this to be more reliable. I tried commands file or qemu-img, but the results are not quite clear. Any idea improving my methods?

Jakub Žitný
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  • Why are the results not clear - what are the results? Which file-version? – Nils Dec 09 '12 at 22:16
  • Well.. I had strange results yesterday, because for .vmdk od .vdi qemu-img info gave me "raw". Since I created new different versions from original qcow2 and ran qemu-img info again, everthing looks just fine, even when I rewrite the extension of vmdk to vdi, it recognizes it. Thx for having me retry this.. – Jakub Žitný Dec 11 '12 at 03:22
  • Perhaps `file` gave you "raw" while `qemu-img info` gave the right results? The file-command looks into the first few bytes and checks them against a regex in its "database". On Linux the file-extension does not matter much. – Nils Dec 11 '12 at 22:10

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qemu-img info should be able to recognize all the formats QEMU understands. Unfortunately, even with the formats QEMU supports, the proprietary vendors change the format, so qemu-img can't always use them

dyasny
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