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In
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...
,
ftype is a
command-line
A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user-friendly alternativ ...
utility on
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
that is used to display or change the link between a
file type
A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or open.
Some file formats ...
and an
executable
In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), in ...
program.
Overview
The
ftype command
Command may refer to:
Computing
* Command (computing), a statement in a computer language
* command (Unix), a Unix command
* COMMAND.COM, the default operating system shell and command-line interpreter for DOS
* Command key, a modifier key on A ...
was introduced as a
shell builtin
In computing, a shell builtin is a Command (computing), command or a Subroutine, function, exposed by a Shell (computing), shell, that is implemented in the shell itself, instead of an external computer program, program which the shell would load a ...
to
cmd.exe
cmd.exe, a.k.a. Command Prompt, is a shell program on later versions of Windows ( NT and CE families), OS/2,, eComStation, ArcaOS, and ReactOS. In some versions of Windows ( CE .NET 4.2, CE 5.0 and Embedded CE 6.0) it is referred to as ...
with the release of
Windows NT 4.0. It lists all
Registry keys in
HKEY CLASSES ROOT which contain the subkey, and prints out the
REG SZ contents of the value within these keys. Since it is an internal command built into
cmd.exe, there is no
FTYPE.EXE.
Because values in contain information on how to open
file types with registered extensions, this command essentially lists all registered file types, and which executables are used to open them, along with any switches used by the executable.
Multiple file extensions can be associated with the same file type and several file types can be linked to the same executable application.
See also
*
File format
A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...
*
Filename extension
A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (for example, .txt, .mp3, .exe) that indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...
*
File association In computing, a file association associates a file with an application capable of opening that file. More commonly, a file association associates a class of files (usually determined by their filename extension, such as .txt) with a corresponding ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
ftype , Microsoft Docs
Command-line software
Utilities for Windows
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