this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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"Magic bytes"? We just called them headers, back in my day (even if sometimes they are at the end of the file)
The library that handles it is literally called "libmagic". I'd guess the phrase "magic bytes" comes from the programming concept of a magic number?
I did not know about that one! It makes sense though, because a lot of headers would start with, well yeah, "magic numbers". Makes sense.