Archiving

Revision as of 13:33, 21 December 2012

(Lossless, for generic data + file archives)

Archiving only

(many files => 1 file, no compression attempted)

• AR file format (.a, .lib) -- Unix Archiver (ar) format as used by various compilers/linkers
• ARC (Internet Archive) (.arc)
• BagIt
• CPIO (.cpio)
• LBR (.lbr)
• Lynx (archiver) (Commodore) (.lnx)
• Mozilla Archive (.mar)
• Tape Archive (.tar)

Compression + archiving

(Multiple files => 1 file, makes it smaller. See Compression for formats that compress single files/streams, and Disk Image Formats for formats that capture the low-level structure of a disk)

• 7z (.7z)
• ACE (.ace)
• ARC (.arc)
• ARC (FreeArc) (.arc)
• ARC (Internet Archive) (gzipped form: .arc.gz)
• Apple Disk Image
• ARJ
• BACKUP (MS-DOS)
• BlakHole (.bh)
• BRU - (RSX-11M backup)
• Cabinet (.cab)
• Disk Archiver (.dar)
• DWC (.dwc)
• IMP (.imp)
• Jar (.j, .jar) => this is just a renamed zip file with some mandatory files
• KGB Archiver (.kgb)
• LHAv (.lzh, .lha)
• PackIt (.pit)
• PAQ (.pa6, .pa7, .pa8, others)
• PerfectCompress (.uca)
• PMA (.pma)
• RAR (.rar)
• Softlib (Softdisk Publishing)
• Spark (.spk)
• Stuffit (.sit)
• Stuffit X (.sitx)
• UltraCompressor II (.uc, .uc0, .uc2, .ucn, .ur2, .ue2)
• WARC (.warc, .warc.gz)
• Windows Imaging Format (.wim, .swm)
• ZIP (.zip)
• ZOO (.zoo)

Diff files

(containing only the parts of a file that have changed, so they can be applied to an existing file to update it; used for update distribution and incremental backups)

• bsdiff
• FidoNet nodediff
• RTPatch

Institutional archiving

• OAIS (Open Archival Information System, an organization that does archiving)
• Submission Information Package

Metadata formats

• Internet Archive metadata

Self-extracting archives

(in addition, some of the other archivers are able to produce executable files for some platform which include the archived data and a program to extract them, and generally have the file extension normal for executables, such as .exe for DOS/Windows)

• SDA (Self Dissolving Archive)
• SEA (Self-Extracting Archive]
• SFX (Self-Extracting Archive)
• shar (Shell Archive, in Unix-like systems)

Transfer encodings

(convert binaries to printable ASCII for download; encode resource forks or metadata together with file, etc.)

• BinHex (.hqx)
• MacBinary

(see also E-Mail, newsgroups, and forums for transfer encodings used in such media)

Uncategorized

• 7zX s7z
• AFA afa
• ALZip alz
• APX apx
• ARCFS - ArcFS ArchivePacker
• ArchiveLib GreenLeaf
• cfs - Compact File Set
• cpt - Compact Pro
• DGCA dgc
• DMS dms - Amiga Disk Masher compressed file
• F - Freeze/Melt
• GCA gca
• HA ha
• ICE ice
• IFHC - Amiga FileImploder Clone
• Inflate infl
• JCalG1 DataPacker (.jc, Commodore Amiga)
• xp3 - KiriKiri
• LZX lzx
• ??_ - MS-DOS Compression
• PAK pak
• par par2 - Parchive File
• partimg - PartImage
• pea - PeaZip
• PIM pim
• qda - Quadruple D
• RK rk
• RZIP rzip
• ba - SCIFER
• sen - Scifer
• sfArk sfark
• SQX sqx
• uha - UHarc
• hki - WinHKI
• rk - WinRK
• XAR xar
• YZ1 yz1
• zz - Zzip