Determine whether a file is binary or text

fileIsBinary.py

#!/usr/bin/env python2

def fileIsBinary(path):
    text = bytearray([7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 27]) + bytearray(range(0x20, 0x100))
    return bool(open(path, 'rb').read(1024).translate(None, text))

Example

>>> fileIsBinary('/usr/bin/ls')
True
>>> fileIsBinary('/etc/issue')
False