Computer file formats

.arc is a file format by SEA (System Enhancement Associates) that was very popular before Phil Katz's introduction of the .zip format. It compresses multiple files into one - but unlike ZIP, not entire directory trees. The .arc format was the subject of quite a bit of controversy in the 1980s - an important event in the open source debate. ...more on Wikipedia about ".arc"

A .ccd file is a CD image file for CloneCD, similar to Alcohol 120%'s .mdf. ...more on Wikipedia about ".ccd"

A file with the extension .dmg uses a disk image format commonly found on Mac OS X. The format allows secure password protection as well as file compression and hence serves both security and file distribution functions. Its most common function is the distribution of software over the Internet. When opened, DMG files are " mounted" as a drive within the Finder. ...more on Wikipedia about ".dmg"

.ics is a computer file extension used to designate a file containing (an arbitrary set of) calendaring and scheduling information consistent with iCalendar ...more on Wikipedia about ".ics"

.ifb is a computer file extension used to designate a file containing free or busy time information consistent with iCalendar ...more on Wikipedia about ".ifb"

.m4a is the file extension attached to names of files using the MPEG-4 Audio standard. The normal extension for any MPEG-4 file is .mp4, which is also mentioned in the MPEG-4 standard. The .m4a file extension has been made popular by Apple, which started using the .m4a file extension in their iTunes software and iPod music players to distinguish between MPEG-4 Video and Audio files. Currently, most software that supports MPEG-4 Audio also supports the .m4a extension. The most common type of .m4a files available are those using the AAC ( Advanced Audio Coding) audio format, but other formats such as Apple Lossless and even mp3 files may be put inside a .m4a container file. You can normally safely rename the file extension of a .mp4 file containing only audio to .m4a or vice versa to get the file to properly play in your favorite audio player. ...more on Wikipedia about ".m4a"

.mdf is the file extension used with file formats of several different applications: ...more on Wikipedia about ".mdf"

.pst is a filename extension in Microsoft Windows operating system. If one uses Microsoft Exchange Server, the messages, calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored on the server. If one does not use Exchange Server, the messages, calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored locally in a Personal Folders (.pst) file. ...more on Wikipedia about ".pst"

.txt is a filename extension for files consisting of text with very few formatting (ex: no bolding or italics). This kind of text format is also called a plain text file to differentiate them from other kinds of binary files, which, at the time the distinction was made, were not supposed to have human readable text. The precise definition of the .txt format is not specified, but typically matches the format accepted by the system terminal or simple text editor. Files with the .txt extension can easily be read or opened by any program that reads text and, for that reason, are considered universal (or platform independent). ...more on Wikipedia about ".txt"

8SVX is a subformat of the Interchange File Format. The subformat is for 8-bit sampled sounds, supports both mono and stereo streams as well as loops; commonly used as a basic audio sample format on Amiga computers for many years. Its 16-bit counterpart, called 16SV, never gained such a popularity due to the lack of native hardware support for 16-bit audio in Amigas and growing popularity of other formats like AIFF and WAV. ...more on Wikipedia about "8SVX"

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a lossy data compression scheme intended for audio streams. ...more on Wikipedia about "Advanced Audio Coding"

The Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX) format is a type of XML metafile designed to store a list of Windows Media files to play during a multimedia presentation. ...more on Wikipedia about "Advanced Stream Redirector"

Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data on personal computers. The format was co-developed by Apple Computer based on Electronic Arts Interchange File Format (IFF) and is most commonly used on Apple Macintosh computer systems. AIFF is also used by Silicon Graphics Incorporated. ...more on Wikipedia about "AIFF"

Amiga Disk File aka ADF is a file format used by Amiga computers and emulators to store images of disks. It has been around almost as long as the Amiga itself, although it was not initially called by any particular name. Before it was known as ADF, it was used in commercial game production, backup and disk virtualisation. Technically speaking, ADF is not really a file format but actually a track-by-track dump of the disk data as read by the Amiga operating system, and so the "format" is really fixed-width AmigaDOS data tracks appended one after another and held in a file. ...more on Wikipedia about "Amiga Disk File"

Amigaguide is a hypertext document file format designed for the Amiga, files are stored in ASCII so it is possible to read and edit a file without the need for special software. ...more on Wikipedia about "Amigaguide"

APEv2 tags are used to add metadata, such as the title, artist, or track number, to digital audio files. The APEv1 tag was designed for the Monkey's Audio format. Frank Klemm extended the format to add a header, allowing APE tags to be at the beginning of files, and also allowed metadata values to be Unicode rather than simply ASCII. ...more on Wikipedia about "APEv2 tag"

Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated (ARINC) is the leading provider of transport communications and systems engineering solutions for five major industries ( aviation, airports, defense, government and transportation) since 1929. ARINC has installed computer data networks in police cars and railroad cars and also maintains the standards for line-replaceable units. ...more on Wikipedia about "ARINC"

Ascii85 is a form of binary to text encoding developed by Adobe Systems. It is more efficient at encoding binary data as ASCII characters than Base64, resulting in only an approximately 25% increase in data size versus 33% for base64. ...more on Wikipedia about "Ascii85"

The Au file format is a simple audio file format that consists of a header of 6 32- bit words and then the data. The format was introduced by Sun Microsystems. ...more on Wikipedia about "Au file format"

An audio file format is a container format for storing audio data on a computer system. There are many file formats for storing audio files. ...more on Wikipedia about "Audio file format"

Base 64 literally means a positional numbering system using a base of 64. It is the largest power of two base that can be represented using only printable ASCII characters. This has led to its use as a transfer encoding for email among other things. All well-known variants that are known by the name Base64 use the characters A–Z, a–z, and 0–9 in that order for the first 62 digits but the symbols chosen for the last two digits vary considerably between different systems. Several other encoding methods such as uuencode and later versions of binhex use a different set of 64 characters to represent 6 binary digits but these are never called by the name base64. ...more on Wikipedia about "Base64"

Computer files can be divided into two broad categories: binary and text. ...more on Wikipedia about "Binary and text files"

A binary to text encoding is an encoding of data in plain text. More precisely, it is an encoding of binary data in a sequence of ASCII printable characters. These encodings are necessary for transmission of data when the channel or the protocol only allows ASCII printable characters, such as e-mail or usenet. ...more on Wikipedia about "Binary to text encoding"

BinHex, short for "binary-to-hexadecimal", is a binary to text encoding system that was used on the Mac OS for sending binary files through e-mail. It was similar to uuencode, but combined both "forks" of the Mac file system together, along with extended file information. BinHexed files take up more space than the original files, but are far less likely to be corrupted in transit. ...more on Wikipedia about "BinHex"

BitTorrent is the name of a client application for the torrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution protocol created by programmer Bram Cohen. BitTorrent is designed to widely distribute large amounts of data without incurring the corresponding consumption in server and bandwidth resources (and typically, monetary fees attracted as a result of that). ...more on Wikipedia about "BitTorrent"

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