Hello trid users,
some days i inspect my disks with visual disk space tool gdmap. So i looked
in some directories for non coloured areas. Some samples use filename
extension vsmacros. Unfortunately i found only few such samples and some are
the same. In the end i get only 2 different examples (CMakeVSMacros1.vsmacros
CMakeVSMacros2.vsmacros). I found these examples as part of cmake package
(version 3.20 3.22.1 3.25.1). On Linux Mint and raspbian these are part of
cmake-data package. On Windows these samples are found as part of Microsoft
Visual Studio software.
So i run trid utility on my vsmacros examples. My examples are described
generic as " Generic OLE2 / Multistream Compound" with mime type
application/x-ole-storage by docfile.trid.xml (See appended
output/trid-v-old.txt).
For comparison reason i also run the file format identification utility DROID
( See
https://sourceforge.net/projects/droid/). The samples are here also
described generic as "OLE2 Compound Document Format" without mime type by PUID
fmt/111.
For comparison reason i also run file command (version 5.44) on such
samples. Here the samples are also recognized. These are described generic as
"Composite Document File V2 Document" (see appended output/file-5.44.txt).
When excluding internal checks for Compound Document Files by "-e cdf" option
the samples are described as "OLE 2 Compound Document". It still is not able
to do sub classification, but i get some additional information. It shown
directory names like:
PITMMANIFE
VSM
VSM7PROJEX
VSMPDB
VSMPE
VSMPROJ
VSM_Project_Data
VSM_Project_MetaData
With the help of tools like Michal Mutl Structured Storage Viewer i was able
to extract these embedded files and save it with file suffix stream.
Unfortunately i found no file format specification. So i do not know which
parts are required and which parts are optional.
When searching on the net for information you will find text that looks like
plagiarism. All mention 3 items. The first is expressed by "Microsoft Visual
Studio". So such files should be created/used/be part of Microsoft Visual
Studio. I have tried Microsoft Visual Studio Community ( 2019 Version
16.11.27 and 1.80.0) on Windows, Linux Mint and raspbian but it was not able
to open my samples. I tried to install plugins concerning macros but it does
not help.
The second item is expressed by phrase "binary". Apparently this means CDF
format but this nowhere explicitly mentioned. So this also means opposite of
"text based" variant..
The third item is expressed by phrase "macro". But it not clear for me what is
the "macro part".
So these facts are expressed inside TrID definition by lines like:
<FileType>Microsoft Visual Studio binary macro project</FileType>
<Ext>VSMACROS</Ext>
On most pages the correlation to suffix vsmacros is missing, especially on
Microsoft web sites. I found no page where the correlation to CDF format
explicitly is mentioned. So i must choose a generic page as reference. That
is expressed by line like:
<RefURL>
https://file-extension.net/seeker/file_extension_vsmacros </RefURL>
After spending some days to look for suited information i give up and
represent my observations now. So i hope that other users can improve my
created TrID definition.
With the new trid definition now all my vsmacros examples are described (see
appended output/trid-v-new.txt). TrID definitions, some samples and output are
stored in archive /vsmacros_.zip. I hope that my definitions can be used in
future version of triddefs.
With best wishes
Jörg Jenderek
