These queries arose when I was updating a C++ program that handles files. >From early computers in the 1960's, text files have been easy to understand: a long succession of 8-bit characters, with CR and LF as about the only serious complication.
But the coming of Unicode has complicated that, with need to distinguish one 16-bit Unicode character from two adjacent 8-bit ANSI characters. For example, the old ever-so-simple Windows Notepad program now when printing asks the user to choose between these four modes: ANSI, Unicode, Unicode big endian, UTF-8. Please where is a full description of all .TXT (text) file modes, all the information being together? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have written a program to handle graphics: I am familiar with the modes bpp (= bits per pixel) 1 2 4 8 16 24. But when updating that program for Windows Vista, I ran into a mode with bpp=32, four bytes per pixel. The first three bytes would likely be red, green, blue, as in bpp=24 mode; but what is the fourth byte? is it ignored, or transparentness, or what?
