How does computer understand whether some file is text, video, image. As it only understands binary at the end of the day ?

Question

I tried going through various articles and videos available online, but couldn’t really understand, properly!!

In: 0

Answer 1

Files have an extension and a header, the extension is a dot followed by usually three letters after the filename that determines what program will open the file and some general information on the type of data, this is sometimes hidden by the operating system

The header is a section at the start of a file that gives information on how to read the file contents, like resolution of an image, framerate of a video, sampling rate of an audio file and so on, combining the two you get all the metadata you need on how to read the binary information and interpret it in the correct way