Why is mime_content_type() deprecated in PHP?

Question

I\'m just curious to know why mime_content_type() is now considered deprecated.

This method for determining the mime type is much easier than the replacement Fileinf

Answer 1

Using finfo_file and finfo_open, and FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE:

finfo_file( finfo_open( FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE ), $filename );

Here's a small wrapper to cover different PHP environments, derived from CSSMin.php in MediaWiki 1.20:

function getMimeType( $filename ) {
        $realpath = realpath( $filename );
        if ( $realpath
                && function_exists( 'finfo_file' )
                && function_exists( 'finfo_open' )
                && defined( 'FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE' )
        ) {
                // Use the Fileinfo PECL extension (PHP 5.3+)
                return finfo_file( finfo_open( FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE ), $realpath );
        }
        if ( function_exists( 'mime_content_type' ) ) {
                // Deprecated in PHP 5.3
                return mime_content_type( $realpath );
        }
        return false;
}

EDIT: Thanks @Adam and @ficuscr for clarifying that this function was, in fact, not deprecated.

As of MediaWiki 1.30, the above code was essentially changed (back) to:

function getMimeType( $filename ) {
        return mime_content_type( $filename );
}