C# How can I test a file is a jpeg?

Question

Several options:

You can check for the file extension:

static bool HasJpegExtension(string filename)
{
    // add other possible extensions here
    return Path.GetExtension(filename).Equals(".jpg", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)
        || Path.GetExtension(filename).Equals(".jpeg", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase);
}

or check for the correct magic number in the header of the file:

static bool HasJpegHeader(string filename)
{
    using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(File.Open(filename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)))
    {
        UInt16 soi = br.ReadUInt16();  // Start of Image (SOI) marker (FFD8)
        UInt16 marker = br.ReadUInt16(); // JFIF marker (FFE0) or EXIF marker(FFE1)

        return soi == 0xd8ff && (marker & 0xe0ff) == 0xe0ff;
    }
}

Another option would be to load the image and check for the correct type. However, this is less efficient (unless you are going to load the image anyway) but will probably give you the most reliable result (Be aware of the additional cost of loading and decompression as well as possible exception handling):

static bool IsJpegImage(string filename)
{
    try
    {
        using (System.Drawing.Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromFile(filename)) 
        {           
            // Two image formats can be compared using the Equals method
            // See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.imaging.imageformat.aspx
            //
            return img.RawFormat.Equals(System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        }
    }
    catch (OutOfMemoryException)
    {
        // Image.FromFile throws an OutOfMemoryException 
        // if the file does not have a valid image format or
        // GDI+ does not support the pixel format of the file.
        //
        return false;
    }
}

Open the file as a stream and look for the magic number for JPEG.

JPEG image files begin with FF D8 and end with FF D9. JPEG/JFIF files contain the ASCII code for 'JFIF' (4A 46 49 46) as a null terminated string. JPEG/Exif files contain the ASCII code for 'Exif' (45 78 69 66) also as a null terminated string

OMG, So many of these code examples are wrong, wrong wrong.

EXIF files have a marker of 0xff*e1*, JFIF files have a marker of 0xff*e0*. So all code that relies on 0xffe0 to detect a JPEG file will miss all EXIF files.

Here's a version that will detect both, and can easily be altered to return only for JFIF or only for EXIF. (Useful when trying to recover your iPhone pictures, for example).

    public static bool HasJpegHeader(string filename)
    {
        try
        {
            // 0000000: ffd8 ffe0 0010 4a46 4946 0001 0101 0048  ......JFIF.....H
            // 0000000: ffd8 ffe1 14f8 4578 6966 0000 4d4d 002a  ......Exif..MM.*    
            using (BinaryReader br = new BinaryReader(File.Open(filename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite)))
            {
                UInt16 soi = br.ReadUInt16();  // Start of Image (SOI) marker (FFD8)
                UInt16 marker = br.ReadUInt16(); // JFIF marker (FFE0) EXIF marker (FFE1)
                UInt16 markerSize = br.ReadUInt16(); // size of marker data (incl. marker)
                UInt32 four = br.ReadUInt32(); // JFIF 0x4649464a or Exif  0x66697845

                Boolean isJpeg = soi == 0xd8ff && (marker & 0xe0ff) == 0xe0ff;
                Boolean isExif = isJpeg && four == 0x66697845;
                Boolean isJfif = isJpeg && four == 0x4649464a;

                if (isJpeg) 
                {
                    if (isExif)
                        Console.WriteLine("EXIF: {0}", filename);
                    else if (isJfif)
                        Console.WriteLine("JFIF: {0}", filename);
                    else
                        Console.WriteLine("JPEG: {0}", filename);
                }

                return isJpeg;
                return isJfif;
                return isExif;
            }
        }
        catch
        {
            return false;
        }
    }

You could try loading the file into an Image and then check the format

Image img = Image.FromFile(filePath);
bool isBitmap = img.RawFormat.Equals(ImageFormat.Jpeg);

Alternatively you could open the file and check the header to get the type

You could find documentation on the jpeg file format, specifically the header information. Then try to read this information from the file and compare it to the expected jpeg header bytes.

Read the header bytes. This article contains info on several common image formats, including JPEG:

Using Image File Headers To Verify Image Format

JPEG Header Information