Squash (RISC OS)

Squash files (file type FCA, Squash) contain compressed data for single files on RISC OS systems.

The file command calls this format "squished".

Format details
According to the help text for the Squash application, "The Squash module currently compresses using a 12-bit LZW algorithm but no guarantee is made that this will be so in the future."

The compressed data is preceded by a header, with offsets measured in bytes and all values stored in little-endian byte order:

As with a number of data formats related to filing systems on RISC OS, the load and execution addresses are actually used to hold the file type and date stamp of the original file.

The remaining data in the file (from offset 20 to the end) is in compress format, and can be decompressed using gunzip. One way to do this is to run the following in a bash shell:

dd if=input_file skip=20 bs=1 | gunzip -c - > output_file

Software

 * RISC OS de-archiver
 * Or see the section above, for a way to convert to compress format.
 * Or see the section above, for a way to convert to compress format.

Sample files

 * http://www.arcade-bbs.net/filepages/file77.htm → ,
 * https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/archive/squash/