xz
| Filename extension | .xz |
|---|---|
| Internet media type | application/x-xz |
| Magic number | 0xFD, '7', 'z', 'X', 'Z', 0x00 |
| Developed by | The Tukaani Project |
| Latest release | 5.1.2alpha / July 4, 2012[1] |
| Open format? | Yes |
| Website | tukaani.org/xz/format.html |
xz is a lossless data compression program and file format which incorporates the LZMA2 compression algorithm.
xz is essentially a stripped down version of the 7-Zip program, which uses its own file format rather than the .7z format used by 7-Zip which lacks support for Unix-like file system metadata.[2]
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Design [edit]
xz compresses single files as input, and does not bundle multiple files into a single archive. It is therefore common to compress a file that is itself an archive, such as those created by the tar or cpio Unix programs.[2]
History [edit]
Although the original 7-Zip program, which implements LZMA2 compression, is able to produce small files, albeit at the cost of speed, it also created its own unique archive format which was made primarily for Windows and did not support Unix functionality.[2]
Implementation [edit]
An implementation of the xz file format is freely available online as XZ Utils. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL and GNU GPL, with the bulk of the software (e.g., liblzma) in the public domain.[3] Version 1.22 of GNU tar supports using this software to handle xz files transparently.[4][5] FreeBSD tar has supported xz transparently since r191190 (released on April 17, 2009).
7-Zip has supported xz since version 9.04 beta (stable since 9.20).[6]
Uses [edit]
xz has gained notability for compressing packages in the GNU coreutils project,[7] Fedora,[8] Arch Linux,[9] Slackware,[10] FreeBSD,[11] Gentoo,[12] and GNOME,[13] as well as being an option to compress a compiled Linux kernel.[14]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ http://git.tukaani.org/?p=xz.git;a=blob;f=NEWS;hb=HEAD
- ^ a b c http://linuxgazette.net/162/lindholm.html
- ^ XZ Utils Web site
- ^ GNU tar Web site: References
- ^ Changelog for Tar 1.22
- ^ 7-Zip release history
- ^ GNU Coreutils files (See version 7.1 and newer files ending in .tar.xz)
- ^ Fedora 12: Features/XZRpmPayloads
- ^ Archlinux News: Switching to xz compression for new packages
- ^ Slackware 13.0 Changelog, entry Fri May 8 18:49:03 CDT 2009
- ^ http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2011-January/061131.html
- ^ RFC: Remove .lzma in favor of .xz portage snapshots
- ^ Important: Switch of GNOME tarball compression format
- ^ http://git.tukaani.org/?p=xz-embedded.git
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