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submitted 1 year ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml

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[-] dan@upvote.au 3 points 1 year ago

Linux mostly doesn't use file extensions... It relies on "magic bytes" in the file.

Same with the web in general - it relies purely on MIME type (e.g. text/html for HTML files) and doesn't care about extensions at all.

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

"Magic bytes"? We just called them headers, back in my day (even if sometimes they are at the end of the file)

[-] dan@upvote.au 4 points 1 year ago

The library that handles it is literally called "libmagic". I'd guess the phrase "magic bytes" comes from the programming concept of a magic number?

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I did not know about that one! It makes sense though, because a lot of headers would start with, well yeah, "magic numbers". Makes sense.

this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023

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