XBM File Format
   
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XBM File Format

Short Name XBM
Long Name X Window Bitmap
Typical File Extensions .h
Contains Monochrome Bitmap/Icon/Cursor


This is a format that is used to store monochrome icons and cursors in the X Window system (a GUI system that is particularly popular on UNIX and Linux computers).

The format is not compressed (it in fact, it is extremely verbose), and is unusual in that as well as being a graphics file format, it is also valid C programming source code. In typical uses, the verbosity is not a major disadvantage, in that this format is normally used to store only very small images.

One interesting aspect of the XBM format is that images in this format can be generated on the fly using browser-based JavaScript (as far as I'm aware, it is the only image format that can be generated in this way - as other formats such as GIF, PNG and JPEG can only be created using server-side scripts such as ASP, CGI or PHP scripts). An example of generating XBM images using JavaScript can be found in chapter 14 of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide.

For color images, a similar format to XBM, namely XPM, has devised.

A technical discussion of this format can be found in Chapter 15 of Graphics File Formats by David C. Kay and John R. Levine.


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