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file extensions

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  • N Nigel Savidge

    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:

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    Miszou
    wrote on last edited by
    #25

    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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    • P peterchen

      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!

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      Gary R Wheeler
      wrote on last edited by
      #26

      peterchen wrote:

      "hide known extensions"

      Very possibly the dumbest program option I've ever seen :|.


      Software Zen: delete this;

      Fold With Us![^]

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      • P Paul Watson

        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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        Lost User
        wrote on last edited by
        #27

        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

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        • T Todd Smith

          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

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          Luis Alonso Ramos
          wrote on last edited by
          #28

          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 x at the end: docx for example. They represent the new XML file format.

          Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico

          Not much here: My CP Blog!

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          • L Lost User

            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

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            Vikram A Punathambekar
            wrote on last edited by
            #29

            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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            • V Vikram A Punathambekar

              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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              Lost User
              wrote on last edited by
              #30

              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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              • Z zoid

                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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                Lost User
                wrote on last edited by
                #31

                why not, but only one dot in the name. I hate file names like this "application.exe.config".

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                • Z zoid

                  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.

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                  Mike Poz
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #32

                  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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                  • S Shog9 0

                    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...)

                    ----

                    ...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...

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                    Chris J Saunders
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #33

                    Do MIME types relate to your problem? Regards Chris Saunders

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                    • Z zoid

                      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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                      Frank Kahn
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #34

                      I thought _MAX_EXT would kill that idea but actually, it has a value of 256.

                      Frank

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                      • P Paul Watson

                        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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                        ednrgc
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #35

                        Paul Watson wrote:

                        Mark is 86 years old.

                        I hope that I also live long enough to be a burden on my kids :laugh:

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                        • Z zoid

                          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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                          ednrgc
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #36

                          I've never had any complaints about my extension. :laugh:

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                          • Z zoid

                            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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                            Michael_White
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #37

                            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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                            • Z zoid

                              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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                              tlw1145
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #38

                              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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                              • C Chris J Saunders

                                Do MIME types relate to your problem? Regards Chris Saunders

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                                Shog9 0
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #39

                                Apart from using it to recognize files pulled from the Web or email, i'm not aware of much in the way of MIME support in Windows. But it'd be nice.

                                ----

                                ...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...

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                                • Z zoid

                                  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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                                  DigitalRacer
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #40

                                  "Why.not.have.longer.extensions?" Sounds like William Shatner DR

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                                  • Z zoid

                                    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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                                    patbob
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #41

                                    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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                                    • Z zoid

                                      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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                                      Ever Green
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #42

                                      MS use an extension .csproj...

                                      Sigh

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                                      • S Shog9 0

                                        Something which never ceases to frustrate and annoy me.

                                        ----

                                        ...the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more...

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                                        jara88884
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #43

                                        Also most applications to use or read the extensions must recognise the longer extension before it will open it.

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                                        • G Gary R Wheeler

                                          peterchen wrote:

                                          "hide known extensions"

                                          Very possibly the dumbest program option I've ever seen :|.


                                          Software Zen: delete this;

                                          Fold With Us![^]

                                          K Offline
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                                          Kelly Herald
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #44

                                          I agree completely! Not to mention that when some people see a file VacationPic.jpg in their explorer they will double click it thinking that is is a "harmless" JPEG picture when in reality it could be a virus file named VacationPic.jpg.exe with an embedded icon set to Window's image icon to complete the illusion that it is just an image file.

                                          Kelly Herald Software Developer

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