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file header

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file header

[′fīl ‚hed·ər]
(computer science)
A set of words comprising the file name and various characteristics of the file, found at the beginning of a file stored on magnetic tape or disk.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

header

(1) In a disk or tape file, a set of data that resides permanently at the beginning. It may be used for identification only (type of file, date of last update, etc.), or it may describe the structural layout of the contents, as is common with many document and database formats.

(2) In a document or report, common text printed at the top of every page.

(3) Any caption or description used as a headline.

(4) In communications and networking, a group of fields added to the beginning of the message or packet. The fields typically include source and destination addresses as well as data that describe the message content. See HTTP header, email header and header file.
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References in periodicals archive
In this category, metadata created during the generation of computer information, such as a file header (or data about data) created during an upload of an image file to a remote computer, has been held not to be hearsay because, using a strict application of the hearsay rule, there was no "person" making a declaration.
Testable reliability: a modernized approach to ESI admissibility
The mean values of several features in the PE file header have obvious differences between malware and benign software.
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Additionally, user-settable fields must be reserved, allowing the user to add information to the file header.
Designing a High-Performance real-time recording system
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