< file format > (IFF, full name "EA IFF 1985") A generic file format published by Electronic Arts as an open standard. IFF is chunk -based and hierarchical so files can include other files. It is easily extensible and an all round Good Idea.
An IFF file starts with one of the following "group IDs": 'FORM', 'LIST' or 'CAT '. This is followed by an unsigned 32-bit number of bytes in the remainder of the file. Then comes an ID that indicates which type of IFF file this is. The main image type is ILBM , audio is either AIFF or 8SVX , animations are ANIM etc. An IFF file will probably have a filename extension related to this file type stored in the file. The rest of the file is divided into chunks each of which also has a four-byte header and byte count.
Microsoft WAV and AVI are all based around an almost identical scheme to IFF called RIFF . The main difference is that, in RIFF files, numbers are little-endian as on Intel processors, whereas in IFF files they are big-endian, as on the Motorola 68000 processors in the Amiga where IFF files were first used.
(1997-07-23)