5 ms·
There are plenty of file formats that have multiple extensions in common use. I can think of a few off the top of my head: - .jpg / .jpeg - .tif / .tiff - .h
by kaslai 8y ago
There are plenty of file formats that have multiple extensions in common use. I can think of a few off the top of my head:
- .jpg / .jpeg
- .tif / .tiff
- .htm / .html
- .cpp / .cxx
It's frustrating at times, but not all file formats have One True Extension.
- ythn 8y agoC++ is the worst offender: .cpp, .cxx, .cc, .h, .hpp, .hh, etc.
- kaslai 8y agoI've even seen .c++/.h++ in the wild at least once.
- erik_seaberg 8y agoCould be worse, could be uppercase .C/.H…
- cesarb 8y agoMost of these are Microsoft's fault: MS-DOS allows only 3 characters for the file extension, so the file extensions had to be abbreviated. As for C++, I'd also blame Microsoft. The plus character (+) is a reserved character for MS-DOS, so the obvious extension ".c++" couldn't be used (nor could the case-sensitive ".C" extension). So people either toppled their plus signs (".c++" becomes ".cxx"), or replaced them by the first letter of "plus" (".c++" becomes ".cpp"), or treated them as a repetition sign (".c++" becomes ".cc").