identifying file types

[BobLewiston]

Within a C# program, is there any way to tell if a file is a text file or not? I mean a real way, not just basing your conclusion on a file name extension.

 

[office politics]

Text or Binary? - CodeGuru Forums

mr. blonde
Member Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 393

Re: Text or Binary?

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EXE's always start with "MZ". Beyond that you can do a character frequency analysis on the file. Binary files will yield a more random pattern, while a text file will be almost entirely printable ASCII. I have code somewhere that does such a thing if you're interested, though it's in QBASIC.

 

[Baez]

Most file formats start with some kind of ASCII character or word at the beginning of the file. Like wave files use the word RIFF as its first 4 characters. That would be the way you can tell.