XZ

XZ is a stream compression format with built-in integrity checks. It uses LZMA2 compression. Compressed streams are able to be concatenated and still be decompressible like a single-stream file.

XZ is a successor to LZMA_Alone format, and an alternative to Lzip.

Identification

XZ files always have lengths that are multiples of 4 bytes, and they begin with a 6-byte "magic" sequence of (hex) FD 37 7A 58 5A 00 and end with footer "magic bytes" of 59 5A. (The ending bytes can be verified as a sign that the file has not been truncated in transmission.)

Software

• 7-Zip
• LZMA SDK
• XZ Utils:
  • xz, unxz, xzcat, etc.
  • xzdec
  • liblzma
• XZ Embedded

Sample files

• dexvert samples — archive/xz

References

• Current spec
• Official site (has historical specs with other info)
• Wikipedia article
• Xz format inadequate for long-term archiving - Analysis of weaknesses and design errors in the xz format, by the author of another format