Talk:Electronic File Formats

There should probably be an agreed definition of a file format to aid in selecting content and automating reasoning based on format IDs etc (if we are not all talking about the same things then we will not be able to generalise from the results of our work).

What is an Electronic File format?

Options:

1) a knowable, repeatable set of rules for structuring content in a computer file

2) a documented standard way of structuring computer files

3) the options that appear in the save-as drop-down menus in software applications

4) a file extension

5) a mime type

6) ???