Is header the same thing as metadata?

Question

Metadata is "data about data" and the header in files such as HTML, WAV, MP3, text, etc contain a header, which defines the data within the file. So is the file metadata the same thing as the file header?

Doubleness

Answer 1

Different headers for different file formats may contain [some of] the metadata. However, the header itself is not "the" metadata but rather "where"¹ some such information may be found.

The metadata itself would be the "image size", "ID3 tags", "where the picture was taken", or "author", etc. - independent of where or how such is stored in a particular file.

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¹ Metadata can also be located in other structures throughout the file depending on format and how meta meta is (eg. while the specific encoding used is metadata - and required for processing - it is not often associated as such), etc.

Higherup

Answer 2

So is the file metadata the same thing as the file header?

no, e.g. in windows, you can right click a file then click properties to read certain properties of that file like file size, file name, file extension etc. that is the additional data (i.e. meta data) of that file

so when you send a request/response (for a resource) by default some additional data will be sent along with it & some additional data is sent by the developer explicitly, that is what we call header

if you are e.g. sending a file in the request/respone then the header you set is the meta data about the request/response object not the meta of the file

Wherewith