What do file extensions (exe, pdf, etc) actually do?
In: Technology
The part of a filename after the last dot is used to signify what type of file it is.
Most of it is to help humans be able to read things better, because programs can look at the content of a file to determine filetype.
having the type of the file in the name makes things easier, because this way you don’t even need to look at the content to know what type it is.
The OS can decide to try and open certain filenames with certain programs and built in functions of the OS.
Very old versions of DOS had no extensions at all and later ones only allowed 8 letters for the name of a file and 3 letters for the extension. The extensions created in those days were kept to this day and newer filenames created long after such limitations were lifted also often try to limit themselves to three letters.
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