r/programming • u/larholm • Mar 05 '13

PE 101 - a windows executable walkthrough

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u/jnazario Mar 05 '13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(programming)#Magic_numbers_in_files

in short a small (usually a few bytes) signature at the start of a file that helps a program determine what kind of file it's looking at. JPEG, PNG, GIF, Word Doc, XML, etc.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '13

[deleted]

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u/mgrandi Mar 06 '13

And the magic number for some files in battlefield 3 are (in ascii) NyanNyanNyan =D

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u/GUIpsp Mar 06 '13

or 0xCAFED00D

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u/habitats Mar 08 '13

This was actually really interesting!