Filename extension

A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a
computer file (for example, .txt, .mp3, .exe). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file
contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically delimited from the rest of the
filename with a full stop (period), but in some systems[1] it is separated with spaces.

Some file systems implement filename extensions as a feature of the file system itself and may limit
the length and format of the extension, while others treat filename extensions as part of the
filename without special distinction.

Operating system and file system support

The Multics file system stores the file name as a single string, not split into base name and
extension components, allowing the "." to be just another character allowed in file names. It allows
for variable-length filenames, permitting more than one dot, and hence multiple suffixes, as well as
no dot, and hence no suffix. Some components of Multics, and applications running on it, use
suffixes to indicate file types, but not all files are required to have a suffix — for example,
executables and ordinary text files usually have no suffixes in their names.

File systems for UNIX-like operating systems also store the file name as a single string, with "." as
just another character in the file name. A file with more than one suffix is sometimes said to have
more than one extension, although terminology varies in this regard, and most authors define
extension in a way that does not allow more than one in the same file name. More than one
extension usually represents nested transformations, such as files.tar.gz (the .tar indicates
that the file is a tar archive of one or more files, and the .gz indicates that the tar archive file is
compressed with gzip). Programs transforming or creating files may add the appropriate extension
to names inferred from input file names (unless explicitly given an output file name), but programs
reading files usually ignore the information; it is mostly intended for the human user. It is more
common, especially in binary files, for the file to contain internal or external metadata describing
its contents. This model generally requires the full filename to be provided in commands, whereas
the metadata approach often allows the extension to be omitted.

In DOS and 16-bit Windows, file names have a maximum of 8 characters, a period, and an
extension of up to three letters. The FAT file system for DOS and Windows stores file names as an
8-character name and a three-character extension. The period character is not stored.

The High Performance File System (HPFS), used in Microsoft and IBM's OS/2 stores the file name
as a single string, with the "." character as just another character in the file name. The convention
of using suffixes continued, even though HPFS supports extended attributes for files, allowing a
file's type to be stored in the file as an extended attribute.
Microsoft's Windows NT's native file system, NTFS, and the later ReFS, also store the file name as
a single string; again, the convention of using suffixes to simulate extensions continued, for
compatibility with existing versions of Windows. In Windows NT 3.5, a variant of the FAT file
system, called VFAT appeared; it supports longer file names, with the file name being treated as a
single string.

Windows 95, with VFAT, introduced support for long file names, and removed the 8.3
name/extension split in file names from non-NT Windows.

The classic Mac OS disposed of filename-based extension metadata entirely; it used, instead, a
distinct file type code to identify the file format. Additionally, a creator code was specified to
determine which application would be launched when the file's icon was double-clicked.[2] macOS,
however, uses filename suffixes as a consequence of being derived from the UNIX-like NeXTSTEP
operating system, in addition to using type and creator codes.

In Commodore systems, files can only have four extensions: PRG, SEQ, USR, REL. However, these
are used to separate data types used by a program and are irrelevant for identifying their contents.

With the advent of graphical user interfaces, the issue of file management and interface behavior
arose. Microsoft Windows allowed multiple applications to be associated with a given extension,
and different actions were available for selecting the required application, such as a context menu
offering a choice between viewing, editing or printing the file. The assumption was still that any
extension represented a single file type; there was an unambiguous mapping between extension
and icon.

When the Internet age first arrived, those using Windows systems that were still restricted to 8.3
filename formats had to create web pages with names ending in .HTM, while those using
Macintosh or UNIX computers could use the recommended .html filename extension. This also
became a problem for programmers experimenting with the Java programming language, since it
requires the four-letter suffix .java for source code files and the five-letter suffix .class for Java
compiler object code output files.[3]

Content type
Filename extensions may be considered a type of metadata.[4] They are commonly used to imply
information about the way data might be stored in the file. The exact definition, giving the criteria
for deciding what part of the file name is its extension, belongs to the rules of the specific file
system used; usually the extension is the substring which follows the last occurrence, if any, of the
dot character (example: txt is the extension of the filename readme.txt, and html the
extension of index.html). On file systems of some mainframe systems such as CMS in VM, VMS,
and of PC systems such as CP/M and derivative systems such as MS-DOS, the extension is a
separate namespace from the filename. Under Microsoft's DOS and Windows, extensions such as
EXE, COM or BAT indicate that a file is a program executable. In OS/360 and successors, the part of
the dataset name following the last period, called the low level qualifier, is treated as an extension
by some software, e.g., TSO EDIT, but it has no special significance to the operating system itself;
the same applies to Unix files in MVS.
The filename extension was originally used to determine the file's generic type. The need to
condense a file's type into three characters frequently led to abbreviated extensions. Examples
include using .GFX for graphics files, .TXT for plain text, and .MUS for music. However, because
many different software programs have been made that all handle these data types (and others) in
a variety of ways, filename extensions started to become closely associated with certain products—
even specific product versions. For example, early WordStar files used .WS or .WSn, where n was
the program's version number. Also, conflicting uses of some filename extensions developed. One
example is .rpm, used for both RPM Package Manager packages and RealPlayer Media files;.[5]
Others are .qif, shared by DESQview fonts, Quicken financial ledgers, and QuickTime pictures;[6]
.gba, shared by GrabIt scripts and Game Boy Advance ROM images;[7] .sb, used for SmallBasic
and Scratch; and .dts, being used for Dynamix Three Space and DTS.

Compared to MIME type

In many Internet protocols, such as HTTP and MIME email, the type of a bitstream is stated as the
media type, or MIME type, of the stream, rather than a filename extension. This is given in a line of
text preceding the stream, such as Content-type: text/plain.

There is no standard mapping between filename extensions and media types, resulting in possible
mismatches in interpretation between authors, web servers, and client software when transferring
files over the Internet. For instance, a content author may specify the extension svgz for a
compressed Scalable Vector Graphics file, but a web server that does not recognize this extension
may not send the proper content type application/svg+xml and its required compression header,
leaving web browsers unable to correctly interpret and display the image.

BeOS, whose BFS file system supports extended attributes, would tag a file with its media type as
an extended attribute. Some desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma and GNOME, associate a
media type with a file by examining both the filename suffix and the contents of the file, in the
fashion of the file command, as a heuristic. They choose the application to launch when a file is
opened based on that media type, reducing the dependency on filename extensions. macOS uses
both filename extensions and media types, as well as file type codes, to select a Uniform Type
Identifier by which to identify the file type internally.

Executable programs
The use of a filename extension in a command name appears occasionally, usually as a side effect
of the command having been implemented as a script, e.g., for the Bourne shell or for Python, and
the interpreter name being suffixed to the command name, a practice common on systems that rely
on associations between filename extension and interpreter, but sharply deprecated[8] in Unix-like
systems, such as Linux, Oracle Solaris, BSD-based systems, and Apple's macOS, where the
interpreter is normally specified as a header in the script ("shebang").

On association-based systems, the filename extension is generally mapped to a single, system-wide

selection of interpreter for that extension (such as ".py" meaning to use Python), and the command
itself is runnable from the command line even if the extension is omitted (assuming appropriate
setup is done). If the implementation language is changed, the command name extension is
changed as well, and the OS provides a consistent API by allowing the same extensionless version
of the command to be used in both cases. This method suffers somewhat from the essentially
global nature of the association mapping, as well as from developers' incomplete avoidance of
extensions when calling programs, and that developers can not force that avoidance. Windows is
the only remaining widespread employer of this mechanism.

On systems with interpreter directives, including virtually all versions of Unix, command name
extensions have no special significance, and are by standard practice not used, since the primary
method to set interpreters for scripts is to start them with a single line specifying the interpreter to
use. In these environments, including the extension in a command name unnecessarily exposes an
implementation detail which puts all references to the commands from other programs at future
risk if the implementation changes. For example, it would be perfectly normal for a shell script to
be reimplemented in Python or Ruby, and later in C or C++, all of which would change the name of
the command were extensions used. Without extensions, a program always has the same
extension-less name, with only the interpreter directive and/or magic number changing, and
references to the program from other programs remain valid.

Security issues
The default behavior of File Explorer, the file browser provided with Microsoft Windows, is for
filename extensions to not be displayed. Malicious users have tried to spread computer viruses and
computer worms by using file names formed like LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. The idea is
that this will appear as LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT, a harmless text file, without alerting the
user to the fact that it is a harmful computer program, in this case, written in VBScript. The default
behavior for ReactOS is to display filename extensions in ReactOS Explorer.

Later Windows versions (starting with Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003)
included customizable lists of filename extensions that should be considered "dangerous" in
certain "zones" of operation, such as when downloaded from the web or received as an e-mail
attachment. Modern antivirus software systems also help to defend users against such attempted
attacks where possible.

Some viruses take advantage of the similarity between the ".com" top-level domain and the ".COM"
filename extension by emailing malicious, executable command-file attachments under names
superficially similar to URLs (e.g., "myparty.yahoo.com"), with the effect that unaware users click
on email-embedded links that they think lead to websites but actually download and execute the
malicious attachments.

There have been instances of malware crafted to exploit vulnerabilities in some Windows
applications which could cause a stack-based buffer overflow when opening a file with an overly
long, unhandled filename extension.

The filename extension is just a marker and the content of the file does not have to match it.[9] This
can be used to disguise malicious content. When trying to identify a file for security reasons, it is
therefore considered dangerous to rely on the extension alone and a proper analysis of the content
of the file is preferred. For example, on UNIX-like systems, it is not uncommon to find files with no
extensions at all, as commands such as file are meant to be used instead, and will read the file's
header to determine its content.
See also
file (command)
List of file formats
List of filename extensions
Metadata
.properties

References
1. "What Is a File?" (https://www.ibm.com/servers/resourcelink/svc0302a.nsf/pages/zVMV7R2sc2
46265/$file/dmsb2_v7r2.pdf#page=23) (PDF). z/VM 7.2 CMS Primer (https://www.ibm.com/ser
vers/resourcelink/svc0302a.nsf/pages/zVMV7R2sc246265/$file/dmsb2_v7r2.pdf) (PDF). IBM.
2021-12-05. p. 7. SC24-6265-01. "One thing you need to know about creating files with z/VM is
that each file needs its own three-part identifier. The first part of the identifier is the file name.
The second part is the file type. And the third part is the file mode. These three file identifiers
are often abbreviated fn ft fm."
2. "Mac Creator and File Type codes" (https://livecode.byu.edu/helps/file-creatorcodes.php).
livecode.byu.edu. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
3. "javac – Java programming language compiler" (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/w
indows/javac.html). Sun Microsystems, Inc. 2004. Retrieved 2009-05-31. "Source code file
names must have .java suffixes, class file names must have .class suffixes, and both source
and class files must have root names that identify the class."
4. Stauffer, Todd; McElhearn, Kirk (2006). Mastering Mac OS X (https://books.google.com/books?
id=62xkJo6JXwAC&pg=PA95). John Wiley & Sons. pp. 95–96. ISBN 9780782151282.
Retrieved 2 October 2017.
5. File Extension .RPM Details (http://filext.com/file-extension/rpm) from filext.com
6. File Extension .QIF Details (http://filext.com/file-extension/qif) from filext.com
7. File Extension .GBA Details (http://filext.com/file-extension/GBA) from filext.com
8. Commandname Extensions Considered Harmful (http://www.talisman.org/~erlkonig/document
s/commandname-extensions-considered-harmful)
9. "What Is a File Extension?" (https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-file-extension-2625879).

External links
Media related to Filename extensions at Wikimedia Commons
Database of filename extensions (https://fileinfo.com/) at FileInfo.com

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