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
DVI format document, produced by TeX/LaTeX
.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.

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Last modified on 2021-08-20 10:42:53.