Archive formats - Definition and Overview

This is a list of formats used by Archiving software in archiving and data compression.

• 7z, see also the 7-zip website (http://www.7-zip.org).
• ACE, a proprietary format.
• ar, the classic Unix non-compressing archiving format.
• ARJ, and its successor JAR (not to be confused with jar, i.e. Java ARchive files), see also the website of ARJ Software, Inc. (http://www.arjsoft.com/)
• bzip2, extension '.bz2'; see also the Bzip2 website (http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/)
• CAB, the Microsoft Windows native archive format.
• Compress, extension '.Z'; format used in Unix, mostly superseded by GZip.
• cpio, see also the GNU cpio website (http://www.gnu.org/software/cpio/cpio.html).
• deb, the Debian Linux package format.
• DGCA, extension .dgc
• GCA, predecessor of DGCA.
• gzip, extension '.gz'; the usual format for distributing Unix files is '.tar.gz'.
• LHA, extension '.lzh'; the Amiga standard format.
• RAR, a proprietary format.
• RPM, a widespread Linux package format.
• shar, a Unix self-extracting shell archive format.
• sea, an Apple Macintosh self-extracting shell archive format.
• StuffIt, extension '.sit' a (mainly) Apple Macintosh compression format.
• tar, a format for archiving files without compressing. Compression is usually subsequently applied using gzip or bzip2.
• zip, the most widely used compressed format in the IBM PC world. Also the format used for jar, i.e. Java ARchive files.
• zoo (file format)