WARC

File Format
Name	WARC
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Archiving WARC
Extension(s)	.warc .warc.gz
PRONOM	fmt/289

Successor to the ARC (Internet Archive) format. Standardized as ISO 28500:2009, Information and documentation -- WARC file format. Developed under the auspices of the International Internet Preservation Consortium. WARC was developed as an extension to ARC in part to provide better capabilities for managing Web archives for the long term, allowing for capture of more metadata about the circumstances of archiving.

WARC files are often compressed using gzip, resulting in a .warc.gz extension.

Sample files

• Test WARC Files warc.gz file from Internet Archive.

References

• Draft of ISO-DIS 28500 As circulated for ISO ballot and approval.
• WARC, Web ARChive file format, from Library of Congress resource on Sustainability of Digital Formats
• Working drafts for WARC specification
• The WARC File Format (ISO 28500) - Information, Maintenance, Drafts
• WARC Tools (in Python)
  • Some history on the Python tools is available on here on the COPTR wiki.
• Slide show on WARC
• The WARC Ecosystem (Archive Team)