SUFFIXES(7)

🎀 NAME 🎀

suffixes — list of file suffixes 💖

okay so real quick, bestie: this is the suffixes(7) page from the Miscellaneous Information Manual, and it's lowkey one of the most useful little cheat sheets on the whole system, no cap. It's just… every file ending. All of them. Slay. 🦋

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

So here's the vibe: it's customary to hint at what's inside a file using its file suffix, which (typically) is a period followed by one or more letters. Like, it's giving "trust me, I'm a .txt" energy.

Tons of standard utilities — compilers, especially — use the suffix to figure out what kind of file they're looking at. And the make(1) utility? Its whole rules situation is driven by file suffixes. So yeah, these little dots matter.

Here's a list of suffixes you're likely to run into on a Linux system 🐧:

• ,v — files for RCS (Revision Control System)
• - — backup file
• .C — C++ source code, equivalent to .cc
• .F — Fortran source with cpp(1) directives or file compressed using freeze
• .S — assembler source with cpp(1) directives
• .Y — file compressed using yabba
• .Z — file compressed using compress(1)
• .[0-9]+gf — TeX generic font files
• .[0-9]+pk — TeX packed font files
• .[1-9] — manual page for the corresponding section
• .[1-9][a-z] — manual page for section plus subsection
• .a — static object code library
• .ad — X application default resource file
• .ada — Ada source (may be body, spec, or combination)
• .adb — Ada body source
• .ads — Ada spec source
• .afm — PostScript font metrics
• .al — Perl autoload file
• .am — automake(1) input file
• .arc — arc(1) archive
• .arj — arj(1) archive
• .asc — OpenPGP ASCII-armored data
• .asm — (GNU) assembler source file
• .au — Audio sound file
• .aux — LaTeX auxiliary file
• .avi — (msvideo) movie
• .awk — AWK language program
• .b — LILO boot loader image
• .bak — backup file
• .bash — bash(1) shell script
• .bb — basic block list data produced by gcc -ftest-coverage
• .bbg — basic block graph data produced by gcc -ftest-coverage
• .bbl — BibTeX output
• .bdf — X font file
• .bib — TeX bibliographic database, BibTeX input
• .bm — bitmap source
• .bmp — bitmap
• .bz2 — file compressed using bzip2(1)
• .c — C source
• .cat — message catalog files
• .cc — C++ source
• .cf — configuration file
• .cfg — configuration file
• .cgi — WWW content generating script or program
• .cls — LaTeX Class definition
• .class — Java compiled byte-code
• .conf — configuration file
• .config — configuration file
• .cpp — equivalent to .cc
• .csh — csh(1) shell script
• .cxx — equivalent to .cc
• .dat — data file
• .deb — Debian binary package (deb(5))
• .def — Modula-2 source for definition modules
• .def — other definition files
• .desc — initial part of mail message unpacked with munpack(1)
• .diff — file differences (diff(1) command output)
• .dir — dbm data base directory file
• .doc — documentation file
• .dsc — Debian source package control file (dsc(5))
• .dtx — LaTeX package source file
• .dvi — TeX's device independent output
• .el — Emacs-Lisp source
• .elc — compiled Emacs-Lisp source
• .eps — encapsulated PostScript
• .exp — Expect source code
• .f — Fortran source
• .f77 — Fortran 77 source
• .f90 — Fortran 90 source
• .fas — precompiled Common-Lisp
• .fi — Fortran include files
• .fig — FIG image file (used by xfig(1))
• .fmt — TeX format file
• .gif — Compuserve Graphics Image File format
• .gmo — GNU format message catalog
• .gsf — Ghostscript fonts
• .gz — file compressed using gzip(1)
• .h — C or C++ header files
• .help — help file
• .hf — equivalent to .help
• .hlp — equivalent to .help
• .htm — poor man's .html
• .html — HTML document used with the World Wide Web
• .hqx — 7-bit encoded Macintosh file
• .i — C source after preprocessing
• .icon — bitmap source
• .idx — reference or datum-index file for hypertext or database system
• .image — bitmap source
• .in — configuration template, especially for GNU Autoconf
• .info — files for the Emacs info browser
• .info-[0-9]+ — split info files
• .ins — LaTeX package install file for docstrip
• .itcl — itcl source code; itcl ([incr Tcl]) is an OO extension of tcl
• .java — a Java source file
• .jpeg — Joint Photographic Experts Group format
• .jpg — poor man's .jpeg
• .js — JavaScript source code
• .jsx — JSX (JavaScript XML-like extension) source code
• .kmap — lyx(1) keymap
• .l — equivalent to .lex or .lisp
• .lex — lex(1) or flex(1) files
• .lha — lharc archive
• .lib — Common-Lisp library
• .lisp — Lisp source
• .ln — files for use with lint(1)
• .log — log file, in particular produced by TeX
• .lsm — Linux Software Map entry
• .lsp — Common-Lisp source
• .lzh — lharc archive
• .m — Objective-C source code
• .m4 — m4(1) source
• .mac — macro files for various programs
• .man — manual page (usually source rather than formatted)
• .map — map files for various programs
• .me — Nroff source using the me macro package
• .mf — Metafont (font generator for TeX) source
• .mgp — MagicPoint file
• .mm — sources for groff(1) in mm - format
• .mo — Message catalog binary file
• .mod — Modula-2 source for implementation modules
• .mov — (quicktime) movie
• .mp — Metapost source
• .mp2 — MPEG Layer 2 (audio) file
• .mp3 — MPEG Layer 3 (audio) file
• .mpeg — movie file
• .o — object file
• .old — old or backup file
• .orig — backup (original) version of a file, from patch(1)
• .out — output file, often executable program (a.out)
• .p — Pascal source
• .pag — dbm data base data file
• .patch — file differences for patch(1)
• .pbm — portable bitmap format
• .pcf — X11 font files
• .pdf — Adobe Portable Data Format (use Acrobat/acroread or xpdf)
• .perl — Perl source (see .ph, .pl, and .pm)
• .pfa — PostScript font definition files, ASCII format
• .pfb — PostScript font definition files, binary format
• .pgm — portable greymap format
• .pgp — OpenPGP binary data
• .ph — Perl header file
• .php — PHP program file
• .php3 — PHP3 program file
• .pid — File to store daemon PID (e.g., crond.pid)
• .pl — TeX property list file or Perl library file
• .pm — Perl module
• .png — Portable Network Graphics file
• .po — Message catalog source
• .pod — perldoc(1) file
• .ppm — portable pixmap format
• .pr — bitmap source
• .ps — PostScript file
• .py — Python source
• .pyc — compiled python
• .qt — quicktime movie
• .r — RATFOR source (obsolete)
• .rej — patches that patch(1) couldn't apply
• .rpm — RPM software package
• .rtf — Rich Text Format file
• .rules — rules for something
• .s — assembler source
• .sa — stub libraries for a.out shared libraries
• .sc — sc(1) spreadsheet commands
• .scm — Scheme source code
• .sed — sed source file
• .sgml — SGML source file
• .sh — sh(1) scripts
• .shar — archive created by the shar(1) utility
• .shtml — HTML using Server Side Includes
• .so — Shared library or dynamically loadable object
• .sql — SQL source
• .sqml — SQML schema or query program
• .sty — LaTeX style files
• .sym — Modula-2 compiled definition modules
• .tar — archive created by the tar(1) utility
• .tar.Z — tar(1) archive compressed with compress(1)
• .tar.bz2 — tar(1) archive compressed with bzip2(1)
• .tar.gz — tar(1) archive compressed with gzip(1)
• .tar.xz — tar(1) archive compressed with xz(1)
• .taz — tar(1) archive compressed with compress(1)
• .tcl — tcl source code
• .tex — TeX or LaTeX source
• .texi — equivalent to .texinfo
• .texinfo — Texinfo documentation source
• .text — text file
• .tfm — TeX font metric file
• .tgz — tar(1) archive compressed with gzip(1)
• .tif — poor man's .tiff
• .tiff — Tagged Image File Format
• .tk — tcl/tk script
• .tmp — temporary file
• .tmpl — template files
• .ts — TypeScript source code
• .tsx — TypeScript with JSX source code (.ts + .jsx)
• .txt — equivalent to .text
• .uu — equivalent to .uue
• .uue — binary file encoded with uuencode(1)
• .vf — TeX virtual font file
• .vpl — TeX virtual property list file
• .w — Silvio Levi's CWEB
• .wav — wave sound file
• .web — Donald Knuth's WEB
• .wml — Source file for Web Meta Language
• .xbm — X11 bitmap source
• .xcf — GIMP graphic
• .xml — eXtended Markup Language file
• .xpm — X11 pixmap source
• .xs — Perl xsub file produced by h2xs
• .xsl — XSL stylesheet
• .xz — file compressed with xz(1)
• .y — yacc(1) or bison(1) (parser generator) files
• .z — File compressed using pack(1) (or an old gzip(1))
• .zip — zip(1) archive
• .zoo — zoo(1) archive
• .zst — File compressed using zstd(1) format
• ~ — Emacs or patch(1) backup file
• rc — startup (run control) file, e.g., .newsrc

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🌈 STANDARDS 🌈

General UNIX conventions. (iconic, honestly 💅)

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💀 BUGS 💀

This list is not exhaustive. So like… don't come for it if your fave obscure suffix isn't here, bestie 🫶

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• file(1)
• make(1)

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okay and that's the whole page!! 🎀 this was the Linux man-pages 6.20 version of suffixes(7), dated 2026-05-11 — go forth and file things correctly, you main character 👑✨