Skip to content

Item Types Reference

Complete reference for Gopher item types as defined in RFC 1436 and common extensions.

Overview

Gopher uses single-character codes to identify item types. These appear as the first character of each line in a directory listing.

Core Types (RFC 1436)

Code Name Constant Description
0 Text ItemType.TEXT Plain text file
1 Directory ItemType.DIRECTORY Gopher menu/directory
2 CSO ItemType.CSO CSO phone-book server
3 Error ItemType.ERROR Error message
4 BinHex ItemType.BINHEX BinHex-encoded file
5 DOS ItemType.DOS_BINARY DOS binary archive
6 UUEncoded ItemType.UUENCODED UUEncoded text
7 Search ItemType.SEARCH Full-text search
8 Telnet ItemType.TELNET Telnet session
9 Binary ItemType.BINARY Binary file
+ Mirror ItemType.MIRROR Redundant server
g GIF ItemType.GIF GIF image
I Image ItemType.IMAGE Other image format
T TN3270 ItemType.TN3270 TN3270 session

Extended Types

Common extensions beyond RFC 1436:

Code Name Constant Description
i Info ItemType.INFO Informational text (not selectable)
h HTML ItemType.HTML HTML document or URL
s Sound ItemType.SOUND Audio file
d Document ItemType.DOCUMENT PDF or other document
; Video ItemType.VIDEO Video file
c Calendar ItemType.CALENDAR Calendar data
M MIME ItemType.MIME MIME-encoded data
P PDF ItemType.PDF PDF document

Type Categories

Text Types

Types that contain readable text:

from mototli.protocol import ItemType

text_types = [
    ItemType.TEXT,       # 0 - Plain text
    ItemType.INFO,       # i - Info line
    ItemType.ERROR,      # 3 - Error message
]

# Check if type is text
if item_type.is_text:
    # Decode as text
    content = response.content.decode()

Binary Types

Types that contain binary data:

binary_types = [
    ItemType.BINARY,      # 9 - Generic binary
    ItemType.DOS_BINARY,  # 5 - DOS binary
    ItemType.GIF,         # g - GIF image
    ItemType.IMAGE,       # I - Other image
    ItemType.SOUND,       # s - Audio
    ItemType.VIDEO,       # ; - Video
    ItemType.PDF,         # P - PDF
]

# Check if type is binary
if item_type.is_binary:
    # Handle as bytes
    with open("file", "wb") as f:
        f.write(response.content)

Directory Types

Types that represent navigable directories:

directory_types = [
    ItemType.DIRECTORY,  # 1 - Standard directory
    ItemType.SEARCH,     # 7 - Search (returns directory)
]

# Check if type is directory
if item_type.is_directory:
    for item in response.items:
        print(item.display_text)

External Types

Types that require external handling:

external_types = [
    ItemType.TELNET,   # 8 - Telnet session
    ItemType.TN3270,   # T - TN3270 session
    ItemType.HTML,     # h - HTML/web link
]

# Check if type is external
if item_type.is_external:
    print(f"External resource: {item.selector}")

Informational Types

Types that are display-only (not selectable):

info_types = [
    ItemType.INFO,   # i - Info text
]

# Check if informational
if item_type.is_informational:
    # Don't create a link
    print(f"  {item.display_text}")

ItemType Properties

The ItemType enum provides convenience properties:

from mototli.protocol import ItemType

item_type = ItemType.TEXT

# Category checks
item_type.is_text          # True for text files
item_type.is_binary        # True for binary files
item_type.is_directory     # True for directories
item_type.is_search        # True for search items
item_type.is_external      # True for telnet, HTML
item_type.is_informational # True for info lines

# Get character code
item_type.value  # "0"

Parsing Item Types

from mototli.protocol import ItemType

# From character
item_type = ItemType.from_char("0")  # ItemType.TEXT
item_type = ItemType.from_char("1")  # ItemType.DIRECTORY
item_type = ItemType.from_char("i")  # ItemType.INFO

# Unknown types return BINARY
item_type = ItemType.from_char("?")  # ItemType.BINARY

MIME Type Mapping

Mototli maps file extensions to item types:

Extension MIME Type Item Type
.txt, .md text/plain TEXT
.html, .htm text/html HTML
.gif image/gif GIF
.png, .jpg, .jpeg image/* IMAGE
.mp3, .wav, .ogg audio/* SOUND
.mp4, .avi, .mkv video/* VIDEO
.pdf application/pdf PDF
.tar, .zip, .gz application/* BINARY 
from mototli.utils import get_item_type
from pathlib import Path

# Get item type from file
item_type = get_item_type(Path("image.png"))  # ItemType.IMAGE
item_type = get_item_type(Path("doc.pdf"))    # ItemType.PDF

Gophermap Examples

iThis is an info line   fake    (NULL)  0
0Text file  /file.txt   localhost   70
1Subdirectory   /subdir localhost   70
7Search /search localhost   70
9Binary download    /file.zip   localhost   70
gGIF image  /image.gif  localhost   70
IPhoto  /photo.jpg  localhost   70
hWeb link   URL:https://example.com (NULL)  0

See Also