PRC (Palm OS)

File Format
Name	PRC (Palm OS)
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Executables PRC (Palm OS)
Extension(s)	.prc, .pdb
MIME Type(s)	application/vnd.palm

PRC is an archive-like file format associated with Palm OS. It usually stores executable code, and/or resource data.

PRC probably stands for Palm Resource, though it is sometimes said to stand for Palm Resource Code, or Palm Resource Compiler.

It is very similar to PDB, and is sometimes considered to be a subtype of PDB. The main difference is that the resource records have a different format and size.

Disambiguation

The term "PRC" is also associated with PalmDOC and related formats, though PalmDOC is a PDB format, not a PRC format.

Identification

In many PRC files, ASCII characters "appl" appear at offset 60. But when they don't, it is not easy to identify a PRC file by its contents.

A few PRC files even have a .pdb file extension. PRC and PDB can be distinguished by the byte at offset 33, which has its low bit set for PRC, and unset for PDB.

Sample files

• http://cd.textfiles.com/pdasoftware/PILOT/ ...
• http://cd.textfiles.com/palmpilotc/ ... (inside many of the self-extracting ZIP files)
• http://cd.textfiles.com/hhot/PALMP~13/ ...
• PDA Essentials (Issue 27) → contents/Palm/... - CD image from archive.org; may have newer files than the above collections
• dexvert samples — archive/palmResource

Links

• PRC (MobileRead Wiki)
• The PRC Format
• Wikipedia: PRC (Palm OS)
• Palm File Format Specs
• prc-tools
• Deark can extract the individual resources