For other uses see README (disambiguation).
In software distribution and software development, a README file contains information about the other files in a directory or archive of computer software. A form of documentation, it is usually a simple plain text file called README, Read Me, READ.ME, README.txt, or README.md (to indicate the use of Markdown)
The file's name is generally written in uppercase. On Unix-like systems in particular, this causes it to stand outboth because lowercase filenames are more common, and because the ls command commonly sorts and displays files in ASCII-code order, in which uppercase filenames will appear first.
A README file typically encompasses:
It is unclear when the convention of including a README file began, but examples dating to the mid-1970s have been found. Early Macintosh system software installed a Read Me on the Startup Disk, and README files commonly accompanied third-party software.
In particular, there is a long history of free software and open-source software including a README file; the GNU Coding Standards encourage including one to provide "a general overview of the package".
Since the advent of the web as a de facto standard platform for software distribution, many software packages have moved (or occasionally, copied) some of the above ancillary files and pieces of information to a website or wiki, sometimes including the README itself, or sometimes leaving behind only a brief README file without all of the information required by a new user of the software.
The popular source code hosting website GitHub strongly encourages the creation of a README fileif one exists in the main (top-level) directory of a repository, it is automatically presented on the repository's front page.[1] In addition to plain text, various other formats and file extensions are also supported, and HTML conversion takes extensions into accountin particular a README.md is treated as GitHub Flavored Markdown.
The expression "readme file" is also sometimes used generically, for other files with a similar purpose. For example, the source-code distributions of many free software packages (especially those following the Gnits Standards or those produced with GNU Autotools) include a standard set of readme files:
README | General information |
AUTHORS | Credits |
THANKS | Acknowledgments |
[[Changelog|CHANGELOG]] | A detailed changelog, intended for programmers |
NEWS | A basic changelog, intended for users |
INSTALL | Installation instructions |
COPYING / LICENSE|Copyright and licensing information|-|BUGS|Known bugs and instructions on reporting new ones|-|CONTRIBUTING / HACKING|Guide for prospective contributors to the project|-|}Also commonly distributed with software packages are an FAQ file and a See alsoFurther reading
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