FILE_ID.DIZ

FILE_ID.DIZ is a plain text file containing a brief content description of the archive in which it is included. It was originally used in archives distributed through bulletin board systems (BBS).

Bulletin boards commonly accept uploaded files from their users. The BBS software would prompt the user to supply a description for the uploaded file, but these descriptions were often less than useful. BBS system operators spent many hours going over the upload descriptions correcting and editing the descriptions. The FILE_ID.DIZ inclusion in archives was designed to address this problem.

FILE_ID stands for "file identification". DIZ stands for Description In Zipfile. In addition, when written in lowercase and viewed upside-down or rotated 180 degrees, the 'diz' file extension looks like 'zip'.

Clark Development and the Association of Shareware Professionals supported the idea of this becoming a standard for file descriptions. Clark rewrote the PCBDescribe program and included it with their PCBoard BBS software. The ASP urged their members to use this description file format in their distributions. Mr. Leavitt released the file specification and his PCBDescribe program source code to the public domain and urged other BBS software companies to support the DIZ file.

Traditionally, a FILE_ID.DIZ should be "up to 10 lines of text, each line being no more than 45 characters long." according to the specification v1.9 — this restriction however is rarely observed nowadays.^{[citation needed]}

Reference to v1.9 does not accurately describe the specification. While the online community was welcomed to make use of the FILE_ID.DIZ specification, the author did not anticipate or approve others claiming the authority to revise the specification or grant exceptions. The 450 character limit was chosen to allow DIZ files to be used in almost all online applications. Expanding the size of DIZ files will break compatibility in some applications and should be avoided. The concept of DIZ files was to allow a concise description of uploaded files to be automatically applied - advertisements and "high ASCII" artwork were specifically prohibited. When used as intended, DIZ files provide a benefit to system operators and the online community. By preserving the purpose of the FILE_ID.DIZ file, the maximum number of people will benefit.

See also

• .nfo — another standard for description files
• README
• Portable Application Description — a newer and more verbose alternative

External links

• FILE_ID.DIZ Specification v1.9 by Richard Holler.