Text Extensions

Check if a file or extension is text, and iterate over 300+ known text file types including source code, markup, data formats, and configuration files. Python port of text-extensions npm package.

Features

• Immutable collection of hundreds of known text file extensions
• Fast membership checks using frozenset
• Case-insensitive and dot-aware checks
• Works for both extensions and full file paths
• Supports dotfiles (e.g., .gitignore)
• Zero dependencies, minimal overhead

Installation

pip install text-extensions

Or using uv:

uv add text-extensions

Usage

Check if an extension is text

from text_extensions import is_text_extension

is_text_extension("txt")      # True
is_text_extension(".py")      # True (dot-aware)
is_text_extension("JS")       # True (case-insensitive)
is_text_extension("png")      # False

Check if a file path has a text extension

from text_extensions import is_text_path

is_text_path("document.txt")              # True
is_text_path("/path/to/file.PY")          # True (case-insensitive)
is_text_path("script.js")                 # True
is_text_path("image.png")                 # False
is_text_path(".gitignore")                # True (dotfile support)

Access the list of text extensions

from text_extensions import TEXT_EXTENSIONS, TEXT_EXTENSIONS_LOWER

# TEXT_EXTENSIONS is a frozenset of all known text extensions
print(len(TEXT_EXTENSIONS))  # Number of supported extensions
"txt" in TEXT_EXTENSIONS     # True
"png" in TEXT_EXTENSIONS     # False

# TEXT_EXTENSIONS_LOWER contains all extensions in lowercase
# Useful for case-insensitive lookups without calling .lower() repeatedly
"TXT" in TEXT_EXTENSIONS_LOWER  # True (case-insensitive)

Supported Extensions

The package includes support for hundreds of text file extensions, including:

• Source Code: py, js, ts, java, c, cpp, go, rs, rb, php, and more
• Markup: html, xml, md, markdown, json, yaml, yml, and more
• Stylesheets: css, scss, sass, less, styl, and more
• Configuration: ini, conf, cfg, json, yaml, toml, and more
• Data Formats: csv, tsv, json, xml, sql, and more
• Documentation: txt, md, rst, tex, and more
• Scripts: sh, bash, zsh, fish, bat, cmd, and more
• And many more...

Credits

This package is a Python port of the text-extensions npm package by Sindre Sorhus.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed list of changes and version history.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read our Contributing Guide for details on our code of conduct, development setup, and the process for submitting pull requests.

Support

If you find this library useful, please consider:

• ⭐ Starring the repository on GitHub to help others discover it.
• 💖 Sponsoring to support ongoing maintenance and development.

Become a Sponsor on GitHub | Support on Patreon

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Y. Siva Sai Krishna

• GitHub: @ysskrishna
• LinkedIn: ysskrishna