Considerations when designing a file type

Posted by AndyBursh on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by AndyBursh
Published on 2012-10-24T13:56:21Z Indexed on 2012/10/24 17:14 UTC
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I'm about to start writing a process for saving some data structure from code in to a file of some proprietary, as-yet-undefined type. However, I've never designed a file type or structure before.

Are there any things, generally speaking, that I should consider before starting my design?
Are there any accepted good practices here? Bad practices I should avoid?
Any absolute do's and don'ts?
Can anybody recommend any good reading on this topic?

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