file-format interview questions
Top file-format frequently asked interview questions
I need to store equations in a text file, in a source format that can be converted to something that can be rendered (e.g. mathML). I like the format used in OpenOffice. I don't want to use TeX, or at least I don't want to pull in all the baggage of interpreting TeX. What format does OpenOffice Equation Editor use, and are there 3rd party command-line converters that will process this format? I don't want to have to run OpenOffice every time I need to render/convert my equations.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have seen many people linking postscript versions of their resume along with the pdf versions.
What purpose does it serve?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Comma delimited files usually have a file extension of .csv
. What file extension should a tab delimited file have? When doing an export from Excel, it saves it as .txt
when selecting tab delimited, but wasn't sure if this was the standard. Thanks.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I've noticed that files from my digital camera are always saved on the SD card as DSCN####.JPG
. Some other cameras also save with this naming scheme, but others yet save with the prefix DSC
, and sometimes even other strings. Is there any significance to these prefixes? Does it mean anything to the computer when importing the photos? And why do different cameras use different prefixes?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Is there any Linux tool that will take a SWF file and output some kind of video format? Note that I don't want a tool which will re-encode an embedded FLV or MP4, I want to take a standard Flash movie and render it as a video.
I found a reference to dump-gnash
in the GNU Manual, but having installed the gnash package on Fedora I don't have that command.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I often see files with a ".md" extension. I usually open them with a text editor like Gedit and I can read them just fine.
So – why do they use .md
files and not say .txt
files?
Can somebody explain how .md
files are different from regular .txt
?
I did a web search but all I came across were wrong references to a "moneydance program file format".
Source: (StackOverflow)
I'm using Notepad++ to create some text file, but I noticed when the generated file is opened in Windows Notepad, the file contents get mal-formated due to the fact that Notepad++ use LF and EOL character, while Notepad expects CR + LF.
Is there any way to change this behavior in Notepad++??
Source: (StackOverflow)
Can OS X's Grab utility be made to save images in formats other than .tiff? I'm specifically looking to extend / adjust Grab for the sake of a quick, short workflow, rather than looking for another tool to use.
Source: (StackOverflow)
I don't want to assume that someone has Word installed on their machine. What is the best file format so that everyone can read a document file?
The only ones I can think of are:
- Rich Text Format
- Open Document Format
- Portable Document Format
- Plaint Text
For example, what would be the best file format to write a resume in? I've actually written mine in XHTML, but some places simply demand a .doc file.
Source: (StackOverflow)
What is the true difference between an Excel CSV and a standard CSV?
For example, when handling columns with line breaks inside one cell, how do they encode it differently?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I have an archive of old(ish) tracked music in various formats - .mod, .s3m, .it and Commodore 64 .sid files.
Is there a single, well-supported, tracked music format with a super-set of the features of all of these, to which I can losslessly convert all of my files?
I'm specifically interested in a format with support for a variety of tags (a-la-ID3).
Source: (StackOverflow)
What is a nice command-line trick to tell if a .gz
file is really gzipped, as opposed to being a non-Gzip file just named that way?
Source: (StackOverflow)
I want to create a file called "message" that contains text only. How does the system know what program to use to read it if I decide to call it:
- message.txt?
- message.dat?
- message.enc?
- message.cpz?
- message.asdfasdf?
- message.abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz?
- message.this_is_so_random?
- or just 'message' with no extension?
I was wondering this for text-only files, but what about files that contain video and audio?
Source: (StackOverflow)
Who decides, if a program is popular enough to have its own MIME type?
Right now, I program something for dealing with .srt subtitles - and while on wikipedia, it has application/x-subrip
MIME type, nothing like that is seen in the official IANA MIME list.
How is that determined? Who decides, if srt
is popular enough to have its own listing in IANA MIME list?
Source: (StackOverflow)