Open any kind of application with BASH

I have made a Java program that could open any application. Suppose there is a file name “*.jpg”, the it would allow the OS to recognize the type of application and then open the default application. Another example: Suppose the file’s name is “*.flv”, then it would open up the default media player just like when you click an icon in nautilus but the only difference was that it was in command line. Here is the java program for that:

Where does firefox get the “default” applications for opening files from?

By default, the Firefox (33.0) on my FreeBSD 11.0-CURRENT has the default application for opening PDF files set to Inkscape. Firefox does remember my previous choice, evince, in the “What should Firefox do with this file?” dialog, so until recently I was just confused where this configuration came from, but mostly ignored it because it did barely concern me.