An audio file format is a file format for storing digital audio data on a computer system. The bit layout of the audio data is called the audio coding format and can be uncompressed, or compressed to reduce the file size, often using lossy compression. The data can be a raw bitstream in an audio coding format, but it is usually embedded in a container format or an audio data format with defined storage layer.
zlib is a software library used for data compression. zlib was written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler and is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in their gzip file compression program. zlib is also a crucial component of many software platforms, including Linux, macOS, and iOS. It has also been used in gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Wii, Xbox One and Xbox 360.
The resource fork is a fork or section of a file on Apple's classic Mac OS operating system, which was also carried over to the modern macOS for compatibility, used to store structured data along with the unstructured data stored within the data fork.
In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from "tape archive", as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their own. The archive data sets created by tar contain various file system parameters, such as name, timestamps, ownership, file-access permissions, and directory organization. The command-line utility was first introduced in the Version 7 Unix in January 1979, replacing the tp program. The file structure to store this information was standardized in POSIX.1-1988 and later POSIX.1-2001, and became a format supported by most modern file archiving systems.
PICT is a graphics file format introduced on the original Apple Macintosh computer as its standard metafile format. It allows the interchange of graphics, and some limited text support, between Mac applications, and was the native graphics format of QuickDraw.
uuencoding is a form of binary-to-text encoding that originated in the Unix programs uuencode and uudecode written by Mary Ann Horton at UC Berkeley in 1980, for encoding binary data for transmission in email systems.
7z is a compressed archive file format that supports several different data compression, encryption and pre-processing algorithms. The 7z format initially appeared as implemented by the 7-Zip archiver. The 7-Zip program is publicly available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. The LZMA SDK 4.62 was placed in the public domain in December 2008. The latest stable version of 7-Zip and LZMA SDK is version 19.00.
StuffIt was a family of computer software utilities for archiving and compressing files. Originally produced for the Macintosh, versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux (x86), and Sun Solaris were later created. The proprietary compression format used by the StuffIt utilities is also termed StuffIt.
LHA or LZH is a freeware compression utility and associated file format. It was created in 1988 by Haruyasu Yoshizaki, and originally named LHarc. A complete rewrite of LHarc, tentatively named LHx, was eventually released as LH. It was then renamed to LHA to avoid conflicting with the then-new MS-DOS 5.0 LH command. According to early documentation, LHA is pronounced like La.
BinHex, originally short for "binary-to-hexadecimal", is a binary-to-text encoding system that was used on the classic Mac OS for sending binary files through e-mail. Originally a hexadecimal encoding, subsequent versions of BinHex are more similar to uuencode, but combined both "forks" of the Mac file system together along with extended file information. BinHexed files take up more space than the original files, but will not be corrupted by non-"8-bit clean" software.
MacBinary is a file format that combines the two forks of a classic Mac OS file into a single file, along with HFS's extended metadata. The resulting file is suitable for transmission over FTP, the World Wide Web, and electronic mail. The documents can also be stored on computers that run operating systems with no HFS support, such as Unix or Windows.
HFS Plus or HFS+ is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS 8.1. HFS+ continued as the primary Mac OS X file system until it was itself replaced with the release of the Apple File System (APFS) with macOS High Sierra in 2017. HFS+ is also one of the formats used by the iPod digital music player. It is also referred to as Mac OS Extended or HFS Extended, where its predecessor, HFS, is also referred to as Mac OS Standard or HFS Standard. During development, Apple referred to this file system with the code name Sequoia.
In a computer file system, a fork is a set of data associated with a file-system object. File systems without forks only allow a single set of data for the contents, while file systems with forks allow multiple such contents. Every non-empty file must have at least one fork, often of default type, and depending on the file system, a file may have one or more other associated forks, which in turn may contain primary data integral to the file, or just metadata.
Compact Pro is a software data compression utility for archiving and compressing files on the Apple Macintosh platform. It was a major competitor to StuffIt in the early 1990s, producing smaller archives in less time, able to create self-extracting archives without the use of an external program, as well as being distributed via shareware which greatly helped its popularity. A PC version was also available, ExtractorPC. Neither program is actively supported.
AppleSingle Format and AppleDouble Format are file formats developed by Apple Computer to store Mac OS "dual-forked" files on the Unix filesystem being used in A/UX, the Macintosh platform's first Unix-like operating system. AppleSingle combined both file forks and the related Finder meta-file information into a single file, whereas AppleDouble stored them as two separate files. Support for the formats was later added to Unix software such as NFS and MAE, but they saw little use outside this small market.
DiskDoubler (DD) was a data compression utility for compressing files on the Apple Macintosh platform. Unlike most such programs, which compress numerous files into a single archive for transmission, DiskDoubler was intended to compress single files "in place" to save space on the drive. When such a file was opened, DiskDoubler would decompress the file before handing it off to the application for use. A later addition, AutoDoubler, added background compression, finding and compressing files automatically when the computer was idle.
A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free and may be either unpublished or open.
UUTool was a freeware application written for the Apple Macintosh by Bernie Wieser. The purpose of UUTool was to uuencode and uudecode files, however, the application functionality grew to translate uLaw encoded files to AIFF format, segment large uuencoded files, and recombine multiple uuencoded files for decode.
Apple Disk Image is a disk image format commonly used by the macOS operating system. When opened, an Apple Disk Image is mounted as a volume within the Macintosh Finder.
ZipIt is a shareware data compression utility for archiving and compressing files on the Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X platforms. It was designed to be highly compatible with PKZIP on MS-DOS machines, reading and writing those files as well as performing any necessary line ending conversion or MacBinary encoding to ensure the files were usable on both platforms. It had an advanced user interface and offered a number of automation features, including AppleScript support. First released in 1993, the latest version of ZipIt is version 2.2.2, released in late 2002.
