file extensions
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
If you sent my mom a Word document with .document as the extension she'd delete it thinking it was a virus or some such. .doc is ingrained (as is .xls, .pdf, .txt, .exe, .ppt etc.) For new apps I'd say think of who your users are. If they are techies then longer extensions are fine (.xaml, .application, .csproj, .config etc.) If they are non-techy users then think hard before using more than three letters.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Microsoft use a six letter one in: Application.exe.config Although that's also a double extension - are there any rules for double extensions?
Team Leader - Team Code Project[^] :cool:
Nigel Savidge wrote:
are there any rules for double extensions?
Yes. Try sending one as an attachment through the company spam filter...
Sunrise Wallpaper Project | The StartPage Randomizer | A Random Web Page
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Nigel Savidge wrote:
are there any rules for double extensions?
That they are misleading if you have "hide known extensions" turned on?
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!peterchen wrote:
"hide known extensions"
Very possibly the dumbest program option I've ever seen :|.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Mark is 86 years old. Anyone under 60 is a youngster to him... *ducks* (Well done on beating Scotland. 335 is a whopping score even against Scotland.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Depends on what kind of inter-operability you require. Will your files be processed by lots of other applications most of which are unkown to you (ex mp3 files)? If not then choose whatever you want. I know applications such as SolidWorks (3D CAD) use .sldprt, .sldblk, .sldasm, etc. But for Office there's probably thousands of home grown tools and code out there that assumes 3 character extensions and going with something else would only wreak havoc.
Todd Smith
Todd Smith wrote:
But for Office there's probably thousands of home grown tools and code out there that assumes 3 character extensions and going with something else would only wreak havoc.
Office 2007's extensions all have an
xat the end:docxfor example. They represent the new XML file format.Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico
Not much here: My CP Blog!
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Paul Watson wrote:
(Well done on beating Scotland. 335 is a whopping score even against Scotland.)
:) Seems our batsmen have found some form.
System.IO.Path.IsPathRooted() does not behave as I would expect
Your batsmen never had a problem - even in that whitewash, they performed very well. It was your bowling that was killing you.
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
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Your batsmen never had a problem - even in that whitewash, they performed very well. It was your bowling that was killing you.
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Your batsmen never had a problem
They failed pretty miserably in the finals against England here last Summer.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
It was your bowling that was killing you.
It was Lee that was giving our bowlers a bad name, now he's out and Clark is in we are much better off
System.IO.Path.IsPathRooted() does not behave as I would expect
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
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peterchen wrote:
One thing to be aware is the pattern matching of file search. If you search for "*.zoidfiles", Windows will return all files with the extension ".zoi" as well - because that would be the extension of the 8.3 filename. (that's why, *.html also matches *.htm)
Thanks for the tip, didn't realize that the FindFirstFile Api worked this way.
One last thing to be aware of: Optical disc standard ISO 9660 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9660[^], check the restrictions section. Different formats have different restrictions, one of them is a 3 character extension, another is no file names can have more than one dot in it. I'm sure there are other "standards" that have similar restrictions, but if you're going with life file system file associations, there shouldn't be any reason why you can't have extended extensions. Of course, there's legacy software to take into consideration too.
Mike Poz
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I have a lot of XML files that are given other extensions, and text files that are given other extensions, and it would really be nice to have a naming scheme that would allow those facts to be represented in the name (and file associations...)
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...
Do MIME types relate to your problem? Regards Chris Saunders
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
I thought _MAX_EXT would kill that idea but actually, it has a value of 256.
Frank
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Mark is 86 years old. Anyone under 60 is a youngster to him... *ducks* (Well done on beating Scotland. 335 is a whopping score even against Scotland.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
What it would come down to is target market. I was just thinking about that myself -- and what it came to, is that in the next year my company will be fully windows Vista, so I don't think that will be a problem for me, when I go forward. I'm in a limited market and can control my environment, but if I were selling, I would need to consider compatablity. If you know your target, then that makes the decision for you. Michael White
In the darkness of dispair there is a bright light of hope and understanding, and boy it sure ain't me.
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
Visual Studio uses .vbproj and other similar extensions for some of their files. The origination comes from the need to conserve disk space and memory. Plus, DEC had a form of character storage called Radix50 which stored 3 characters in one 16-bit word, which made it convenient to hold the extension (and the file name, too). It's just a legacy thing. There really is no more need for it. Unix uses the form (such as .o for object file or .c for C source code) in some cases, but it does not constitute an extension. It is all just part of the file name.
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Do MIME types relate to your problem? Regards Chris Saunders
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
"Why.not.have.longer.extensions?" Sounds like William Shatner DR
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
Don't some (really small) USB flash drives use FAT16? I can't recall if MS ever retrofitted long filenames into that file system like they did with FAT32. Floppies (yeah, like anyone cares about _those_ anymore) are another reason. I don't think anybody is still using WinFW3.1 anymore, so probably no issue on that front. I didn't care when I made up our new file format at work, but since our files tend to be in the 20-160GB range, it didn't matter anyway. :)
patbob
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Is there any (compelling) reason to continue using 3 character file extensions? I am in the process of choosing the extensions that my app will use and I am leaning toward using 4 - 6 character extensions. The main reasons are: To avoid colisions with extensions that are used by other apps. The extension names do a better job explaning what kind of data is stored in the file. I am worried however, because it seems almost applications still use 3 letter extensions for their files. Aside from compatibilty issues with old 8.3 format DOS systems which I think for 99% of current applications isn't an issue anymore, why are people avoiding using longer file extensions for new formats?
MS use an extension .csproj...
Sigh
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Something which never ceases to frustrate and annoy me.
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...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...