Editing Text file (section)

== Data storage ==
{{Unreferenced section|date=September 2024}}[[Image:CsvDelimited001.svg|thumb|right|200px|A stylized iconic depiction of a [[Comma-separated values|CSV]]-formatted '''text file''']]
Because of their simplicity, text files are commonly used for [[Computer data storage|storage]] of information.  They avoid some of the problems encountered with other file formats, such as [[endianness]], padding bytes, or differences in the number of bytes in a [[Word (computer architecture)|machine word]]. Further, when [[data corruption]] occurs in a text file, it is often easier to recover and continue processing the remaining contents. A disadvantage of text files is that they usually have a low [[Entropy (information theory)|entropy]], meaning that the information occupies more storage than is strictly necessary.

A simple text file may need no additional [[metadata]] (other than knowledge of its [[character set]]) to assist the reader in interpretation. A text file may contain no data at all, which is a case of [[zero-byte file]].