Manpages - xdg-open.1

.SH "NAME" xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the users preferred application

.SH "SYNOPSIS"

.HP u

xdg-open { | file | URL }

.HP u

xdg-open { | –help | –manual | –version }

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.PP xdg-open opens a file or URL in the users preferred application. If a URL is provided the URL will be opened in the users preferred web browser. If a file is provided the file will be opened in the preferred application for files of that type. xdg-open supports file, ftp, http and https URLs.

.PP xdg-open is for use inside a desktop session only. It is not recommended to use xdg-open as root.

.PP As xdg-open can not handle arguments that begin with a “-” it is recommended to pass filepaths in one of the following ways:

·

Pass absolute paths, i.e. by using realpath as a preprocessor.

·

Prefix known relative filepaths with a “./”. For example using sed -E s|^[^/]|./\0|.

·

Pass a file URL.

.SH "OPTIONS"

.PP –help

Show command synopsis.

.RE

.PP –manual

Show this manual page.

.RE

.PP –version

Show the xdg-utils version information.

.RE .SH "EXIT CODES"

.PP An exit code of 0 indicates success while a non-zero exit code indicates failure. The following failure codes can be returned:

.PP 1

Error in command line syntax.

.RE .PP 2

One of the files passed on the command line did not exist.

.RE .PP 3

A required tool could not be found.

.RE .PP 4

The action failed.

.RE .PP In case of success the process launched from the .desktop file will not be forked off and therefore may result in xdg-open running for a very long time. This behaviour intentionally differs from most desktop specific openers to allow terminal based applications to run using the same terminal xdg-open was called from.

.SH "REPORTING ISSUES"

.PP Please keep in mind xdg-open inherits most of the flaws of its configuration and the underlying opener.

.PP In case the command xdg-mime query default "$(xdg-mime query filetype path/to/troublesome_file)" names the program responsible for any unexpected behaviour you can fix that by setting a different handler. (If the program is broken let the developers know)

.PP Also see the security note on *xdg-mime*(1) for the default subcommand.

.PP If a flaw is reproducible using the desktop specific opener (and isnt a configuration issue): Please report to whoever is responsible for that first (reporting to xdg-utils is better than not reporting at all, but since the xdg-utils are maintained in very little spare time a fix will take much longer)

.PP In case an issue specific to xdg-open please report it to https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xdg/xdg-utils/-/issues .

.SH "SEE ALSO"

.PP xdg-mime*(1), *xdg-settings*(1), *MIME applications associations specification[1]

.SH "EXAMPLES"

.PP

xdg-open http://www.freedesktop.org/

Opens the freedesktop.org website in the users default browser.

.PP

xdg-open /tmp/foobar.png

Opens the PNG image file /tmp/foobar.png in the users default image viewing application.