PHP Manual: Phar File Format

Phar File Format

The phar file format is literally laid out as stub/manifest/contents/signature, and stores the crucial information of what is included in the phar archive in its manifest.

The Phar manifest is a highly optimized format that allows per-file specification of file compression, file permissions, and even user-defined meta-data such as file user or group. All values greater than 1 byte are stored in little-endian byte order, with the exception of the API version, which for historical reasons is stored as 3 nibbles in big-endian order.

All unused flags are reserved for future use, and must not be used to store custom information. Use the per-file meta-data facility to store customized information about particular files.

The basic file format of a Phar archive manifest is as follows:

**Global Phar manifest format**
Size in bytes	Description
4 bytes	Length of manifest in bytes (1 MB limit)
4 bytes	Number of files in the Phar
2 bytes	API version of the Phar manifest (currently 1.0.0)
4 bytes	Global Phar bitmapped flags
4 bytes	Length of Phar alias
??	Phar alias (length based on previous)
4 bytes	Length of Phar metadata (`0` for none)
??	Serialized Phar Meta-data, stored in serialize format
at least 24 * number of entries bytes	entries for each file