How do I get File Type Information based on extension? (not MIME) in c#

Question

How do I get the general File type description based on extension like Explorer does it? So not MIME but the information that the end-user sees, like.

.doc = Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 Document .zip = ZIP File .avi = Video File.

And how can I get the 'secondary' information that seems to be available, which I guess it not extension based. Like on "Video Files" it can give you the 'Length' of the movie or on doc files how many pages it has.. etc etc..

Answer 1

Thanks Dan, Alright.. This answers the first question I had. Sadly not the second. Note: Not everything prints.. Credits to PInvoke.net

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;


namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    static class Program
    {
        [DllImport("Shlwapi.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
        static extern uint AssocQueryString(AssocF flags, AssocStr str, string pszAssoc, string pszExtra, [Out] StringBuilder pszOut, [In][Out] ref uint pcchOut);

        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.Command, ".doc"), "Command");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.DDEApplication, ".doc"), "DDEApplication");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.DDEIfExec, ".doc"), "DDEIfExec");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.DDETopic, ".doc"), "DDETopic");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.Executable, ".doc"), "Executable");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.FriendlyAppName, ".doc"), "FriendlyAppName");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.FriendlyDocName, ".doc"), "FriendlyDocName");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.NoOpen, ".doc"), "NoOpen");
            Debug.WriteLine(FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.ShellNewValue, ".doc"), "ShellNewValue");

            //  DDEApplication: WinWord
            //DDEIfExec: Ñﻴ߾
            //  DDETopic: System
            //  Executable: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE
            //  FriendlyAppName: Microsoft Office Word
            //  FriendlyDocName: Microsoft Office Word 97 - 2003 Document


        }

        public static string FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr assocStr, string doctype)
        {
            uint pcchOut = 0;
            AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, null, null, ref pcchOut);

            StringBuilder pszOut = new StringBuilder((int)pcchOut);
            AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, null, pszOut, ref pcchOut);
            return pszOut.ToString();
        }

        [Flags]
        public enum AssocF
        {
            Init_NoRemapCLSID = 0x1,
            Init_ByExeName = 0x2,
            Open_ByExeName = 0x2,
            Init_DefaultToStar = 0x4,
            Init_DefaultToFolder = 0x8,
            NoUserSettings = 0x10,
            NoTruncate = 0x20,
            Verify = 0x40,
            RemapRunDll = 0x80,
            NoFixUps = 0x100,
            IgnoreBaseClass = 0x200
        }

        public enum AssocStr
        {
            Command = 1,
            Executable,
            FriendlyDocName,
            FriendlyAppName,
            NoOpen,
            ShellNewValue,
            DDECommand,
            DDEIfExec,
            DDEApplication,
            DDETopic
        }

    }
}

Answer 2

My code that include check to prevent from some common errors... Hope it helps :-)

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;

namespace HQ.Util.Unmanaged
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Usage:  string executablePath = FileAssociation.GetExecFileAssociatedToExtension(pathExtension, "open");
    /// </summary>
    public static class FileAssociation
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="ext"></param>
        /// <param name="verb"></param>
        /// <returns>Return null if not found</returns>
        public static string GetExecFileAssociatedToExtension(string ext, string verb = null)
        {
            if (ext[0] != '.')
            {
                ext = "." + ext;
            }

            string executablePath = FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.Executable, ext, verb); // Will only work for 'open' verb
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(executablePath))
            {
                executablePath = FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr.Command, ext, verb); // required to find command of any other verb than 'open'

                // Extract only the path
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(executablePath) && executablePath.Length > 1) 
                {
                    if (executablePath[0] == '"')
                    {
                        executablePath = executablePath.Split('\"')[1];
                    }
                    else if (executablePath[0] == '\'')
                    {
                        executablePath = executablePath.Split('\'')[1];
                    }
                }
            }

            // Ensure to not return the default OpenWith.exe associated executable in Windows 8 or higher
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(executablePath) && File.Exists(executablePath) &&
                !executablePath.ToLower().EndsWith(".dll"))
            {
                if (executablePath.ToLower().EndsWith("openwith.exe"))
                {
                    return null; // 'OpenWith.exe' is th windows 8 or higher default for unknown extensions. I don't want to have it as associted file
                }
                return executablePath;
            }
            return executablePath;
        }

        [DllImport("Shlwapi.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
        static extern uint AssocQueryString(AssocF flags, AssocStr str, string pszAssoc, string pszExtra, [Out] StringBuilder pszOut, [In][Out] ref uint pcchOut);

        private static string FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr assocStr, string doctype, string verb)
        {
            uint pcchOut = 0;
            AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, verb, null, ref pcchOut);

            Debug.Assert(pcchOut != 0);
            if (pcchOut == 0)
            {
                return "";
            }

            StringBuilder pszOut = new StringBuilder((int)pcchOut);
            AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, verb, pszOut, ref pcchOut);
            return pszOut.ToString();
        }

        [Flags]
        public enum AssocF
        {
            Init_NoRemapCLSID = 0x1,
            Init_ByExeName = 0x2,
            Open_ByExeName = 0x2,
            Init_DefaultToStar = 0x4,
            Init_DefaultToFolder = 0x8,
            NoUserSettings = 0x10,
            NoTruncate = 0x20,
            Verify = 0x40,
            RemapRunDll = 0x80,
            NoFixUps = 0x100,
            IgnoreBaseClass = 0x200
        }

        public enum AssocStr
        {
            Command = 1,
            Executable,
            FriendlyDocName,
            FriendlyAppName,
            NoOpen,
            ShellNewValue,
            DDECommand,
            DDEIfExec,
            DDEApplication,
            DDETopic
        }



    }
}

Answer 3

Reading stuff like this directly from the registry is generally a bad idea (see Raymond Chen's blog for all the gory details). In this particular case, the API you want is AssocQueryString in shlwapi.h.

Here's C++ code:

TCHAR buf[1024];
DWORD sz = sizeof(buf) / sizeof(TCHAR);
AssocQueryString(ASSOCF_INIT_DEFAULTTOSTAR, ASSOCSTR_FRIENDLYDOCNAME, L".sql", NULL, buf, &sz);

You can use this from C# either via C++/CLI exposing a nice .NET-friendly API; or call it directly via P/Invoke.

Answer 4

Some extra if's for unknown file types in XP.. May not really give the right results when using it with anything but FriendlyDocName, but just as an example:

public static string FileExtentionInfo(AssocStr assocStr, string doctype)
{
   if ((doctype.Length <= 1) || !doctype.StartsWith(".")) return "";

   uint pcchOut = 0;
   AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, null, null, ref pcchOut);

   if (pcchOut == 0) return (doctype.Trim('.').ToUpper() + " File");

   StringBuilder pszOut = new StringBuilder((int)pcchOut);
   AssocQueryString(AssocF.Verify, assocStr, doctype, null, pszOut, ref pcchOut);
   return pszOut.ToString();
}