2000 File Extensions!

December 21, 2006 — by Per Christensson

If you're like me, you still have several gifts left to buy and worse yet, you don't know what many of them are. While it is more blessed to give than to receive, shopping at crowded malls with people frantically pushing their way in front you does not seem like much of a blessing. Then again, those of us who waited until now to get our shopping done can only blame ourselves.

Speaking of giving, I have a gift for all my Sharpened.net visitors. Today I have added the 2000th file extension to the File Extensions Reference! It has taken several years, but now I can officially say the database contains "thousands of extensions." It was hard to still say the database contained hundreds of file extensions when it had about 1900 entries, but technically, it did not yet contain thousands. Now, I am finally no longer weighed down by the semantic technicality and can proudly claim to have thousands of extensions in the database.

Over the past few months, I have been including more information about each new extension I enter. The goal is to provide more useful information and a broader overview of each file type. However, many of the extensions I entered earlier still have rather slim descriptions. Therefore, starting at the beginning of next year, I plan on going through the entire database and updating each entry with more information and including a new "date updated" field with each one to show when the entry was last updated.

I realize that the gift of file extension information is a bit intangible, but I hope you find it useful nonetheless. After all, we often receive information in immaterial forms, yet it can enrich our lives as much as material gifts can. I hope you are blessed by all the gifts you give and receive this year.