FreeArc/Universal Archive Format

It's description of FreeArc archive format and ideas how it can be further improved.

Archive block structure

Archive consists of blocks which divide into DATA BLOCKS (one datablock contains compressed data of one solid block) and CONTROL BLOCKS which stores archive meta-info (directories, comments, compression methods, recovery records...). Every block may be described by following info:

• block type (0 - data block, 1.. - various control blocks)
• its position in archive (number of first byte)
• original size
• compressed size
• compression algorithm used to compress this block (usually all blocks are compressed, data blocks compression controlled by -m option, control blocks compression by -dm option)
• CRC32 of original data - used to check block consistency

Usually archive consists of blocks in the following order:

• HEADER BLOCK: contains archive signature ("ArC\1") and archiver version. The only block whose contents are never compressed. So first 4 bytes of FreeArc archives are always "ArC\1"
• One or more DATA BLOCKS, containing compressed data for one or more solid blocks
• DIRECTORY BLOCK containing info about files compressed in previous data blocks (filename, size, datetime, attributes plus its CRC32 for consistency checking) plus descriptors of data blocks plus info about which files are stored in which data blocks
• Then one or more DATA BLOCKS followed by corresponding DIRECTORY BLOCK may go again, and again. Unlike other archivers, FreeArc arcghive directory may be split into many parts each containing info only about part of archive - this simplifies archive recovery. Directory splitting is controlled by -s option