diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 2c362ab..745bf36 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -8,3 +8,6 @@
 /dist
 /htmlcov
 __pycache__
+venv/
+.idea/
+.vscode/
diff --git a/datauri/__init__.py b/datauri/__init__.py
index 1a2f5ba..b74c3ad 100644
--- a/datauri/__init__.py
+++ b/datauri/__init__.py
@@ -5,4 +5,5 @@
 from .datauri import (  # noqa: F401
     DataURIError,
     discover,
-    parse)
+    parse,
+    build)
diff --git a/datauri/datauri.py b/datauri/datauri.py
index 673a4df..764af13 100644
--- a/datauri/datauri.py
+++ b/datauri/datauri.py
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 import base64
 import re
 import urllib.parse
+from pathlib import Path
+import mimetypes
 
 
 # RFC 3986: reserved characters, unreserved characters, and percent.
@@ -89,3 +91,31 @@ def discover(s):
             yield parse(match.group())
         except DataURIError:
             continue
+
+
+def build(fp):
+    """
+    Build data URI according to RFC 2397
+    (data:[<mediatype>][;base64],<data>)
+
+    :param str|Path|bytes fp:
+    :return:
+    """
+    if isinstance(fp, (str, Path)) and Path(fp).is_file():
+        b = Path(fp).read_bytes()
+        try:
+            import magic
+            mime = magic.from_file(fp, mime=True)
+        except ImportError:
+            mime, _ = mimetypes.guess_type(str(fp))
+
+        if mime is None:
+            raise DataURIError('Invalid MIME type')
+    else:
+        import magic
+        b = fp
+        mime = magic.from_buffer(fp, mime=True)
+
+    data64 = base64.b64encode(b).decode()
+
+    return 'data:{};base64,{}'.format(mime, data64)
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6863aff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+python-magic==0.4.15
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index c84f471..3eb7646 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -8,10 +8,12 @@
     name='datauri',
     description="implementation of the data uri scheme defined in rfc2397",
     long_description=long_description,
-    version='1.0.0',
+    version='1.0.1',
     author="EclecticIQ",
     author_email="info@eclecticiq.com",
     packages=['datauri'],
+    install_requires=['python-magic'],
+    tests_require=['pytest'],
     url='https://github.com/eclecticiq/python-data-uri',
     license="BSD",
     classifiers=[
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index de50511..be132f4 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 [tox]
-envlist = py33,py34,py35,py36
+envlist = py34,py35,py36
 
 [testenv]
 deps=-rrequirements-test.txt