Question

I know that it might sound silly but, while working on project at some time I feel the need of knowing the very basics of file formats.

I know every thing is stored in binary 1-0 in hard disk and can get an input stream of that.

But now what if

1. I don’t know the format of file now how to decide it by input stream
2. I know its format now what part of the input stream represent different portions of file
   for eg. take a jpeg file that red background now what part of stream represent this information.

I need urgent help(any type links to blog e-books) will be highly appreciable.

Thank you

Answer 1

1. List of file signatures and Magic number (programming)
2. Why do you need to operate on such a low level like input streams? Use a library to get you the information needed on the given file. And btw your jpeg example is a bad one. jpeg is a pixel based image format which has no such thing like “background”. That “background” exists only because the user interpretes the red pixels as background.