MapInfo Interchange Format file
application/vnd.mif
Magic Bytes
Offset: 0
3C 4D 61 6B 65 72 46 69 6C 65
MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF) is a text-based file format originally developed by MapInfo Corporation, now maintained by Precisely, for geographic information system data management. It acts as an interoperability standard, enabling the exchange of map vector graphics and spatial data between MapInfo Professional and other GIS applications. Being a human-readable ASCII format, MIF files are inherently safe and can be modified using basic text editors, though they typically rely on an accompanying MID file for attribute storage.
Validation Code
How to validate .mif files in Python
Python
def is_mif(file_path: str) -> bool:
"""Check if file is a valid MIF by magic bytes."""
signature = bytes([0x3C, 0x4D, 0x61, 0x6B, 0x65, 0x72, 0x46, 0x69, 0x6C, 0x65])
with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
return f.read(10) == signatureHow to validate .mif files in Node.js
Node.js
function isMIF(buffer: Buffer): boolean {
const signature = Buffer.from([0x3C, 0x4D, 0x61, 0x6B, 0x65, 0x72, 0x46, 0x69, 0x6C, 0x65]);
return buffer.subarray(0, 10).equals(signature);
}
Go
func IsMIF(data []byte) bool {
signature := []byte{0x3C, 0x4D, 0x61, 0x6B, 0x65, 0x72, 0x46, 0x69, 0x6C, 0x65}
if len(data) < 10 {
return false
}
return bytes.Equal(data[:10], signature)
}API Endpoint
GET
/api/v1/mif
curl https://filesignature.org/api/v1/mif