Archiving

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File Formats > Electronic File Formats > Compression

(Lossless, for generic data + file archives)


Compression + archiving

(Multiple files => 1 file, makes it smaller)

Archiving only

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

Stream compression formats

A stream format takes a stream of bytes, and outputs a different, hopefully smaller, stream of bytes. These compression formats are often used internally in other data structures to compress data, as well as in network protocols, such as http. Used stand-alone, a stream compression format does not offer archiving capability, however in the UNIX doctrine, an archiver like tar can be combined with an archive format to produce a proper compressed archive.

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)

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