Red Hat LINUX 7.2 Manual page 129

Section 11.5:Identifying and Working with File Types
11.5.3 System Files
• .rpm — a Red Hat Package Manager file
• .conf — a configuration file
• .a — an archive file
• .lock — a "lock" file; determines whether a program is in use
11.5.4 Programming and Scripting Files
• .h — a C or C++ program language header file
• .c — a C program language source code file
• .cpp — a C++ program language source code file
• .o — a program object file
• .pl — a Perl script
• .tcl — a TCL script
• .so — a library file
But file extensions are not always used, or used consistently. So what happens when a file does not
have an extension, or the file does not seem to be what the extension says it is supposed to be?
That's when the file command can be helpful.
In , you created a file called saturday, without an extension. Using the file command, you can
tell what the file is by typing:
file saturday
and you will see ASCII text, or something similar, telling you it is a text file. Any file that is
designated a text file should be readable using cat, more, or less.
To learn more about file, read the man page by typing man file.
For more information on helpful commands for reading files, see Chapter 10, Shell Prompt Basics.
Read the Man Page
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