RAR (file format)

Last updated
RAR file format
Filename extension
.rar, .rev, .r00, .r01
Internet media type
application/vnd.rar
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) com.rarlab.rar-archive
Magic number 52 61 72 21 1A 07 00
(RAR 1.5 to 4.0)
52 61 72 21 1A 07 01 00
(RAR 5+) [1]
Size limitation263-1 bytes (almost 8 exbibytes)
Developed by Eugene Roshal
Initial releaseMarch 1993;31 years ago (1993-03) [2]
Type of format archive format
Free format?No (decompression source code publicly available, but not free software, with restriction that it "cannot be used to develop RAR (WinRAR) compatible archiver") [3]
Website rarlab.com

RAR is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error correction and file spanning. [4] It was developed in 1993 by Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal and the software is licensed by win.rar GmbH. [4] The name RAR stands for Roshal Archive.

Contents

File format

The filename extensions used by RAR are .rar for the data volume set and .rev for the recovery volume set. Previous versions of RAR split large archives into several smaller files, creating a "multi-volume archive". Numbers were used in the file extensions of the smaller files to keep them in the proper sequence. The first file used the extension .rar, then .r00 for the second, and then .r01, .r02, etc.

RAR compression applications and libraries (including GUI based WinRAR application for Windows, console rar utility for different OSes and others) are proprietary software, to which Alexander L. Roshal, [4] the elder brother of Eugene Roshal, holds the copyright. Version 3 of RAR is based on Lempel-Ziv (LZSS) and prediction by partial matching (PPM) compression, specifically the PPMd implementation of PPMII by Dmitry Shkarin. [5]

The minimum size of a RAR file is 20 bytes. The maximum size of a RAR file is 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (263−1) bytes, which is one byte less than 8 EiB. [6]

Versions

The RAR file format revision history:

Notes
  1. ↑ WinRAR 5.0 and RAR for Android refer to this format as RAR4.

Software

Native operating system support

RARlab's native software is available for Microsoft Windows (named WinRAR), Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Android; archive extraction is supported natively in ChromeOS. WinRAR and RAR for Android support the graphical user interface (GUI); other versions named RAR run as console commands.

Creating RAR files

RAR files can only be created with proprietary WinRAR (Windows), RAR [9] for Android, command-line RAR (available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD), and other software that has written permission from Alexander Roshal or uses copyrighted code under license from Roshal. The software license agreements forbid reverse engineering. [4]

Third-party software for extracting RAR files

Several programs can unpack the file format.

Other uses of rar

The filename extension rar is also used by the unrelated Resource Adapter aRchive file format. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ RAR 5.0 technote
  2. ↑ "Interview by correspondence" (in Russian). 1997–2002. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  3. ↑ Roshal, Alexander. "UnRAR License". Fedora Project wiki. Red Hat. Archived from the original on 9 June 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 win.rar GmbH. "RAR and WinRAR END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)". RARLAB. The author and holder of the copyright of the software is Alexander L. Roshal. [...] Neither RAR binary code, WinRAR binary code, UnRAR source or UnRAR binary code may be used or reverse engineered to re-create the RAR compression algorithm, which is proprietary, without written permission.
  5. ↑ Christian Scheurer (2006-12-17). "unrarlib FAQ".
  6. ↑ "WinRAR description" . Retrieved 2013-05-01.
  7. ↑ WinRAR 5.0 introduces the new RAR 5 format. What you need to know - ghacks.net
  8. ↑ WinRAR News: WinRAR 7.00 Final released
  9. ↑ "RAR - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Retrieved 2019-01-31.
  10. ↑ "RarLab downloads: freeware UnRAR source and binaries download". RarLab.com. The license states: "The source code of UnRAR utility is freeware".
  11. ↑ "7-Zip / Discussion / Open Discussion: 7-Zip 15.06 beta". sourceforge.net. Retrieved 2015-10-24.
  12. ↑ PeaZip website with info about RAR5 extraction.
  13. ↑ "The Unarchiver". The Unarchiver. Archived from the original on 2017-06-21.
  14. ↑ "Another High Priority Project done: The Unarchiver provides free RARv3 extraction tools". Free Software Foundation . Retrieved 2024-02-18.
  15. ↑ "The Unarchiver changes". The Unarchiver. Archived from the original on 2017-07-06.
  16. ↑ "The Unarchiver source code from 2016 is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1". GitHub . 2011-05-11. Retrieved 2024-02-18.
  17. ↑ "Unar and Lsar - Command Line Tools for The Unarchiver". The Unarchiver. Retrieved 2024-02-18., including The Unarchiver source code from 2016.
  18. ↑ "MacPaw/XADMaster is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1". GitHub . 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2021-11-23.
  19. 1 2 "Home". UnRarLib.org. UniquE RAR File Library. 2007.
  20. ↑ "Features". UnRarLib.org. UniquE RAR File Library. 2002.
  21. ↑ "FAQ". UnRarLib.org. UniquE RAR File Library. December 2011.
  22. ↑ "List of formats supported by libarchive". GitHub . Retrieved 2021-05-01.
  23. ↑ "Support for RAR · Issue #151 · libarchive/Libarchive". GitHub .
  24. ↑ Panay, Panos (2023-05-23). "Bringing the power of AI to Windows 11 – unlocking a new era of productivity for customers and developers with Windows Copilot and Dev Home". Windows Developer Blog. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  25. ↑ "The Java EE 5 Tutorial" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  26. ↑ "RAR abbreviation stands for Resource Adapter Archive" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  27. ↑ "Resource Adapter aRchive - How is Resource Adapter aRchive abbreviated?" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  28. ↑ "9 Packaging and Deploying Resource Adapters" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  29. ↑ "Apache Maven RAR Plugin" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
  30. ↑ "java - Is Resource Adapter Archive (RAR) the same as Roshal ARchive (RAR)? - Stack Overflow" . Retrieved 2017-12-02.
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