File format
A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.
Contents
Description
A file format specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium.
File formats may be either proprietary or free and may be either unpublished or open.
Examples
Some file formats are designed for very particular types of data: PNG files, for example, store bitmapped images using lossless data compression.
Other file formats, however, are designed for storage of several different types of data: the Ogg format can act as a container for different types of multimedia, including any combination of audio and video, with or without text (such as subtitles), and metadata.
Text files
A text file can contain any stream of characters, including possible control characters, and is encoded in one of various character encoding schemes.
Syntaxes
Some file formats obey a syntax: a set of rules governing the contents of the file.
Examples include text file formats such as HTML, Scalable Vector Graphics, and the source code of software.
