ARCHIVED: What do some common Unix file extensions mean?
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Common Unix file extensions include:
.asc |
ASCII (text) file, often
containing ANSI codes |
.awk |
awk script |
.bak |
Backup copy of file |
.bz2 |
bzip2 compressed file |
.c |
C program source code |
.C |
C++ program source code |
.cc |
C++ program source code |
.cgi |
CGI web page program |
.dat |
Data or other information |
.doc |
Explanatory text file |
.dvi |
|
.el |
Emacs Lisp source code |
.elc |
Compiled Emacs Lisp program |
.f |
Fortran source code |
.f77 |
Fortran source code (f77 compiler) |
.fig |
Xfig data file |
.for |
Fortran source code (fort compiler) |
.gif |
GIF image file |
.gz |
gzip compressed file |
.h |
C or C++ program header file |
.html |
Hypertext Markup Language document |
.info |
Emacs TeXinfo file in "info" format |
.jpg |
Graphical image file in JPEG format |
.log |
Logged information |
.m |
Maple file |
.mat |
MATLAB script |
.me |
nroff input file for processing with
-me option |
.mpg |
MPEG animation file |
.ms |
nroff input file for processing with
-ms option |
.o |
Object code, produced by compilers |
.pal |
Xpaint palette file |
.pbm |
Portable bitmap |
.pgm |
Portable gray scale pixmap |
.pl |
Perl program |
.png |
PNG format graphics file (similar to GIF) |
.ppm |
Portable pixmap |
.ps |
PostScript format document |
.py |
Python program |
.rast |
Sun raster file |
.rgb |
SGI native image file |
.shar |
Shell archive (expand with sh file.shar ) |
.ss |
Scheme source code |
.S |
Assembly (machine) code |
.tar |
Tape archive, used by tar command |
.tar.gz |
Tarred-then-gzipped files |
.tex |
TeX or LaTeX format document |
.tif |
TIFF (Adobe) image file |
.tgz |
Tarred-then-gzipped files (equivalent to .tar.gz ) |
.txt |
Generic text file |
.uue |
uuencoded file |
.xbm |
X bitmap |
.z |
Packed file (from the pack command) or early gzip file |
.Z |
Compressed file, from compress command |
.zip |
Zipped (compressed) file, from zip command
|
Some others include:
*~ |
(File ending with ~ ) Emacs backup file |
#*# |
(File surrounded with #'s) Emacs autobackup file |
,* |
(File beginning with , ) MH removed message |
.*rc |
(File starting with a dot, ending with rc) configuration file
|
Lastly, files with an extension that is a number or a number plus a
letter (e.g., cat.1
, dbm.3b
) are often
manual page files, in runoff format.
At Indiana University, for personal or departmental Linux or Unix systems support, see Get help for Linux or Unix at IU.
This is document affo in the Knowledge Base.
Last modified on 2021-08-20 10:42:53.