What to put in a binary data file's header

Question

I have a simulation that reads large binary data files that we create (10s to 100s of GB). We use binary for speed reasons. These files are system dependent, converted from te

Answer 1

You might consider putting a file offset in a fixed position in the header, which tells you where the actual data begins in the file. This would let you change the size of the header when needed.

In a couple of cases, I put the value 0x12345678 into the header so I could detect if the file format, matched the endianism of the machine that was processing it.