home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- --------A-ARC-------------------------------
-
- The ARC files are archive files created by the SEA ARC program. The
- compression has been superceded by more recent compression programs.
- Similar archives can be created by the PAK and PkPAK programs. There
- have been many variations and enhancements to the ARC format though not
- as many as to the TIFF format.
-
- You may have to use some (paranoid) checks to ensure that you actually
- are processing an ARC file, since other archivers also adopted the idea
- of putting a 01Ah byte at offset 0, namely the Hyper archiver. To check
- if you have a Hyper-archive, check the next two bytes for "HP" or "ST"
- (or look below for "HYP"). Also the ZOO archiver also does put a 01Ah at
- the start of the file, see the ZOO entry below. OFFSET Count TYPE
-
- Description
- 0000h 1 byte ID=1Ah
- 0001h 1 byte Compression method (see table 0001)
- 0002h 12 char File name
- 000Fh 1 dword Compressed file size
- 0013h 1 dword File date in MS-DOS format (see table 0009)
- 0017h 1 word 16-bit CRC
- 0019h 1 dword Original file size
- ="SIZ"
- (Table 0001)
-
- ARC compression types
- 0 - End of archive marker
- 1 - unpacked (obsolete) - ARC 1.0 ?
- 2 - unpacked - ARC 3.1
- 3 - packed (RLE encoding)
- 4 - squeezed (after packing)
- 5 - crunched (obsolete) - ARC 4.0
- 6 - crunched (after packing) (obsolete) - ARC 4.1
- 7 - crunched (after packing, using faster hash algorithm) - ARC 4.6
- 8 - crunched (after packing, using dynamic LZW variations) - ARC 5.0
- 9 - Squashed c/o Phil Katz (no packing) (var. on crunching)
- 10 - crushed (PAK only)
- 11 - distilled (PAK only)
- 12-19 - to 19 unknown (ARC 6.0 or later) - ARC 7.0 (?)
- 20-29 - ?informational items? - ARC 6.0
- 30-39 - ?control items? - ARC 6.0
- 40+ - reserved
-
- According to SEA's technical memo, the information and control items
- were added to ARC 6.0. Information items use the same headers as
- archived files, although the original file size (and name?) can be
- ignored.
-
- OFFSET Count TYPE Description
- 0000h 2 byte Length of header (includes "length"
- and "type"?)
- 0002h 1 byte (sub)type
- 0003h ? byte data
-
- Informational item types as used by ARC 6.0 :
-
- Block type Subtype Description
- 20 archive info
- 0 archive description (ASCIIZ)
- 1 name of creator program (ASCIIZ)
- 2 name of modifier program (ASCIIZ)
-
- 21 file info
- 0 file description (ASCIIZ)
- 1 long name (if not MS-DOS "8.3" filename)
- 2 extended date-time info (reserved)
- 3 icon (reserved)
- 4 file attributes (ASCIIZ)
-
- Attributes use an uppercase letter to signify the
- following:
-
- R read access
- W write access
- H hidden file
- S system file
- N network shareable
-
- 22 operating system info (reserved)
-
- (Table 0009)
-
- Format of the MS-DOS time stamp (32-bit) The MS-DOS time stamp is
- limited to an even count of seconds, since the count for seconds is only
- 5 bits wide.
-
- 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
- |<---- year-1980 --->|<- month ->|<--- day ---->|
-
- 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
- |<--- hour --->|<---- minute --->|<- second/2 ->|
-
- EXTENSION:ARC,PAK
- OCCURENCES:PC
- PROGRAMS:SEA ARC,PAK,PkPAK
- SEE ALSO:HYP,ZOO
- VALIDATION:FileSize="SIZ"
-