| A flat file is a file containing records that have no
structured interrelationship. The term is frequently used to describe a
textual document from which all word processing or other structure characters
or markup have been removed. In usage, there is some ambiguity about whether
such markings as line breaks can be included in a "flat file."
In any event, many users would call a Microsoft Word document that has been
saved as "text only" a "flat file." The resulting file
contains records (lines of text of a certain uniform length) but no information,
for example, about what size to make a line that is a title or that a program
could use to format the document with a table of contents. |
