List of archive formats

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of file formats used by archivers and compressors.

1 Archiving only
2 Compression only
3 Archiving and compression
4 Packages
5 Data Recovery
6 Footnotes
- 6.1 Platforms
7 See also

[edit] Archiving only

File extension(s)^[1]	MIME type^[2]	Official name^[3]	Platform^[4]	Description
.a, .ar		Unix Archiver	Unix-like	The traditional archive format on Unix-like systems, now used mainly for the creation of static libraries.
.cpio	application/x-cpio	Cpio	Unix-like
.shar	application/x-shar	Shell archive	Unix-like	A self-extracting archive that uses the Bourne shell (sh).
.LBR		.LBR	MS-DOS	A system for storing multiple files. LBR archives typically contained files processed by SQ, or the archive itself was compressed with SQ. LBR archives that were compressed with SQ ended with the extension .LQR
.tar	application/x-tar	Tape archive	Unix-like	A common archive format used on Unix-like systems. Generally used in common with gzip, bzip or compress to create .tar.gz, .tar.bz or .tar.Z files.

[edit] Compression only

File extension(s)^[1]	MIME type^[2]	Official name^[3]	Platform^[4]	Description
.bz2	application/x-bzip2	bzip2	Unix-like	An open-source, patent- and royalty-free compression format. The compression algorithm is a Burrows-Wheeler transform followed by a move-to-front transform and finally Huffman coding
.F		Freeze/melt	QNX4	Old compressor for QNX4 OS. The compression algorithm is a modified LZSS, with an adaptive Huffman coding.
.gz	application/x-gzip	gzip	Unix-like	GNU Zip, the primary compression format used by Unix-like systems. The compression algorithm is DEFLATE.
.lzma		lzma	Unix-like	The LZMA compression algorithm as used by 7-Zip
.lzo		lzop	Unix-like	An implementation of the LZO data compression algorithm
.rz		rzip	Unix-like	A compression program designed to do particularly well on very large files containing long distance redundancy.
.?Q?		SQ	CP/M and MS-DOS	Squeeze: A program which compressed files. A file which was "squeezed" had the middle initial of the name changed to "Q", so that a squeezed text file would end with .TQT, a squeezed executable would end with .CQM or .EQE. Typically used with .LBR archives, either by storing the squeezed files in the archive, or by storing the files uncompressed and then compressing the archive, which would have a name ending in ".LQR".
.z	application/x-compress	pack	Unix-like	The old Huffman coding compression format.
.Z	application/x-compress	compress	Unix-like	The traditional LZW compression format.
.??_			MS-DOS/Windows	Compression format(s) used by some Windows and MS-DOS install programs. MS-DOS includes expand.exe to uncompress its install files. The compressed files are created with a matching compress.exe command. The compression algorithm is LZSS.

[edit] Archiving and compression

File extension(s)^[1]	MIME type^[2]	Official name^[3]	Creation platform^[4]	Restoration platform^[5]	Restoring with free software^[6]	Description
.7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7-Zip	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open-source file format. Used by 7-Zip.
.s7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7zX	Mac OS X	Mac OS X	Yes	Based on 7z. Preserves Spotlight metadata, resource forks, owner/group informations, dates and other data which would be otherwise lost with compression.
.ace	application/x-ace-compressed	WinACE	Windows	Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X	No^[7]
.arc		ARC	DOS	Multiple	Yes
.alz	application/x-alz-compressed	ALZip	Windows	Multiple	Yes	A format designed for very large archives.
.arj		ARJ	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes
.cab	application/vnd.ms-cab-compressed	Cabinet	Windows	Multiple	Yes	The Microsoft Windows native archive format, which is also used by many commercial installers such as InstallShield and WISE.
.cpt		Compact Pro	Mac OS			Compact Pro archive, a common archiver used on Mac platforms until about Mac OS 7.5.x. Competed with StuffIt; now obsolete.
.dar	application/x-dar	Disk Archiver	Windows, Unix-like	Windows, Unix-like	Yes	Open source file format. Files are compressed individually with either gzip or bzip2.
.dd		DiskDoubler	Mac OS			obsolete
.dgc	application/x-dgc-compressed	DGCA	Windows	Windows
.dmg	application/octet-stream	Disk Image	Mac OS X	Mac OS X		Supports "Internet-enabled" disk images, which, once downloaded, are automatically decompressed, mounted, have the contents extracted, and thrown away. Currently, Safari is the only browser that supports this form of extraction; however, the images can be manually extracted as well. This format can also be password-protected or encrypted with AES-128.
.gca	application/x-gca-compressed	GCA				The predecessor of DGCA.
.hki		WinHKI	Multiple	Multiple	No	HKI
.ice		ICE	Windows	Windows	Yes	Produced by ICEOWS program. Excels at text file compression.
.j		Jar	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Jar archive, the successor to ARJ
.jar	application/x-java-archive	Jar	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Java Archive. This type is actually just a renamed ZIP archive with a mandatory manifest file.
.kgb		KGB Archiver	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open-sourced archiver with compression using the PAQ family of algorithms and optional encryption.
.lzh, .lha	application/x-lzh	LHA	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The standard format on Amiga.
.lzx	application/x-lzx	LZX	Amiga			Archiver originally used on Amiga. Now used in the Microsoft .cab and .chm files.
.partimg		Partimage	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	A disk image archive format that supports several compression methods as well as splitting the archive into smaller pieces.
.paq6, .paq7, .paq8 and variants		PAQ	Unix-like and Windows	Unix-like and Windows	Yes	An experimental open source packager (http://www.cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression)
.pea		PeaZip	Linux and Windows	Linux and Windows	Yes	Open source archiver supporting authenticated encryption, volume spanning, customizable object level and volume level integrity checks (form CRCs to SHA512 and Whirlpool hashes), fast deflate based compression
.pim		PIM [1]	Windows	Windows	Yes	The format from the PIM - a freeware compression tool by Ilia Muraviev. It uses an LZP-based compression algorithm with set of filters for executable, image and audio files.
.pit		PackIt	Mac OS			obsolete
.qda		Quadruple D	Windows	Windows		Used for data in games written using the Quadruple D library for Delphi. Uses byte pair compression.
.rar	application/x-rar-compressed	RAR	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	No^[8]	A proprietary archive format, second in popularity to .zip files.
.rk		RK and WinRK [2]	Multiple	Multiple	No	The format from a commercial archiving package. Odd among commercial packages in that they focus on incorporating experimental algorithms with the highest possible compression (at the expense of speed and memory), such as PAQ, PPMD and PPMZ (PPMD with unlimited-length strings), as well as a proprietary algorithms.
.sea		sea	Mac OS	Mac OS (implicitly)		A pre-Mac OS X Self-Extracting Archive format. StuffIt, Compact Pro, Disk Doubler and others could create .sea files, though the StuffIt versions were the most common.
.sit	application/x-stuffit	StuffIt	Originally Mac OS, now multiple	Originally Mac OS, now multiple	No	A compression format common on Apple Macintosh computers.
.sitx	application/x-stuffit	StuffIt	Multiple	Multiple	No	A new version of the .sit format that support more compression methods.
.sqx		SQX	Windows	Windows		A royalty-free compressing format
.tar.gz, .tgz, .tar.Z, .tar.bz2, .tbz2, .tar.lzma, .tlz	application/x-gtar	tar with gzip, compress, bzip2, or lzma	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	The "tarball" format combines tar archives with a file-based compression scheme (usually gzip). Commonly used for source and binary distribution on Unix-like platforms, widely available elsewhere.
.uha		UHarc	DOS/Windows	DOS/Windows	No
.uif		Universal Image Format	Windows	Windows	Yes	The upcoming Disc(CD/DVD)-Image/-Archive format with sophisticated compression capabilities, which one can be handled by MagicDISC - a free Disc image emulator from MagicISO - the creator of UIF.
.zip	application/zip	ZIP	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The most widely used compression format on Microsoft Windows. Commonly used on Macintosh and Unix systems too.
.zoo		zoo	Multiple	Multiple	Yes
.zz		Zzip	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Archiver with a compression algorithm based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform method.

[edit] Packages

Main article: Package management system

File extension(s)^[1]	MIME type^[2]	Official name^[3]	Platform^[4]	Description
.deb	application/x-debian-package	Debian package	GNU/Linux (and other GNU derivatives)	A software package format used on Debian and other Debian-based distributions.
.ipk		Itsy Package	GNU/Linux (and other GNU derivatives)	A minimalistic derivative of the Debian package format used in handheld distributions and championed by Handhelds.org
.msi, .msm		Windows Installer	Windows	The now-standard software package format on Microsoft Windows.
.pbi		PC BSD Installer [?]	PC-BSD	Package format used on PC-BSD. It contains all necessary libraries (to avoid dependency hell).
.pkg, .mpkg, .dist		Package, Metapackage, Distribution	Mac OS X	A NeXTSTEP-derived package format that is used by the Installer application.
.pup		dotpup	Puppy linux	.zip file including a script to be run at the end of decompression.
.rpm	application/x-rpm	RPM Package Manager, formerly Red Hat Package Manager	GNU/Linux	A software package format that was created by Red Hat. It is now used on many other distributions.

[edit] Data Recovery

File extension(s)^[1]	MIME type^[2]	Official name^[3]	Platform^[4]	Description
.ecc		dvdisaster error-correction file	Multiple	File format used by dvdisaster to be used for data recovery when discs become damaged or partially unreadable.
.par .par2		Parchive file	Multiple	File format used in conjunction with any archive format to provide redundancy and data recovery, most often in newsgroup distribution of binary files.

[edit] Footnotes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e (File extensions)—The file extensions may differ across platforms. The case of these extensions may differ on case-insensitive platforms.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e (MIME type)—The MIME media types may be conjectural. Very few have been officially registered with the IANA. Compression-only formats should often be denoted by the media type of the uncompressed data, with a content coding indicating the compression format.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e (Official name)—The official names may be disputed.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e (Creation platform)—Indicates the platform(s) under which a format can be created.
^ (Restoration platform)—Indicates the platform(s) under which a format can be restored/extracted. Most file formats can be understood by more than one platform.
^ (Restoring with free software)—Indicates whether the format can be restored using an extraction tool that is free software.
^ Only version 1.x ACE archives can be unpacked with free software.
^ Only version 2.0 RAR archives can be unpacked with free software. Since these are quite rare nowadays, for all practical purposes RAR arhives can't be unpacked with free software. 7-zip for example uses a proprietary plugin under "unRAR license" for the newer archives while rest of 7-zip is free software under LGPL license.

[edit] Platforms

Unix-like—Systems such as Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc.
GNU/Linux—Common only on Linux.
Macintosh—Available for all versions of the Mac OS.
Mac OS X—Only available on Mac OS X; OS X is also usually compatible with Unix-like formats.
Windows—Microsoft Windows, always includes 32-bit x86 and often 64-bit x86-64 and IA64 versions.
Amiga

Categories: Lists of file formats | Archive formats

List of archive formats

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Archiving only

[edit] Compression only

[edit] Archiving and compression

[edit] Packages

[edit] Data Recovery

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Platforms

[edit] See also

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