How to check if the file is a binary file and read all the files which are not?

Question

How can I know if a file is a binary file?

For example, compiled c file.

I want to read all files from some directory, but I want ignore binary files.

Answer 1

It's kind of brute force to exclude binary files with tr -d "[[:print:]\n\t]" < file | wc -c, but it is no heuristic guesswork either.

find . -type f -maxdepth 1 -exec /bin/sh -c '
   for file in "$@"; do
      if [ $(LC_ALL=C LANG=C tr -d "[[:print:]\n\t]" < "$file" | wc -c) -gt 0 ]; then
         echo "${file} is no ASCII text file (UNIX)"
      else
         echo "${file} is ASCII text file (UNIX)"
      fi
   done
' _ '{}' +

The following brute-force approach using grep -a -m 1 $'[^[:print:]\t]' file seems quite a bit faster, though.

find . -type f -maxdepth 1 -exec /bin/sh -c '
   tab="$(printf "\t")"
   for file in "$@"; do
      if LC_ALL=C LANG=C grep -a -m 1 "[^[:print:]${tab}]" "$file" 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then
         echo "${file} is no ASCII text file (UNIX)"
      else
         echo "${file} is ASCII text file (UNIX)"
      fi
   done
' _ '{}' +