xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application

NAME  SYNOPSIS  DESCRIPTION  OPTIONS  EXIT CODES  REPORTING ISSUES  SEE ALSO  EXAMPLES  AUTHORS  COPYRIGHT  NOTES 

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NAME

xdg-open − opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application

SYNOPSIS

	xdg−open {file | URL}
	xdg−open {−−help | −−manual | −−version}

DESCRIPTION

xdg−open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. If a URL is provided the URL will be opened in the user's 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.

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

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|ˆ[ˆ/]|./\0|'.

• Pass a file URL.

OPTIONS

−−help

Show command synopsis.

−−manual

Show this manual page.

−−version

Show the xdg−utils version information.

EXIT CODES

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

1

Error in command line syntax.

2

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

3

A required tool could not be found.

4

The action failed.

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.

REPORTING ISSUES

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

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)

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

If a flaw is reproducible using the desktop specific opener (and isn't 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)

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

SEE ALSO

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

EXAMPLES

xdg−open 'http://www.freedesktop.org/'

Opens the freedesktop.org website in the user's default browser.

xdg−open /tmp/foobar.png

Opens the PNG image file /tmp/foobar.png in the user's default image viewing application.

AUTHORS

Kevin Krammer

Author.

Jeremy White

Author.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2006

NOTES

1.

MIME applications associations specification

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/mime-apps-spec/

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