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- Current: Jun 21, 2023
Text file
In computer science, a text file is a type of file that only contains data encoded by a character code.
A file containing data that are not encoded by a character code is called a binary file.
In a broad definition, program source codes are considered to be a text file. In a narrow definition, a text file contains contents that are meaningful to humans and has an extension ".txt".
For example, a Microsoft Word file containing only text is not a text file because it has data that are not encoded by a character code (e.g., page layout and font).
