All Phar archives contain three to four sections: a stub a manifest describing the contents the file contents [optional] a signature for verifying Phar integrity (phar file format only)

A Phar's stub is a simple PHP file. The smallest possible stub follows: A stub must contain as a minimum, the __HALT_COMPILER(); token at its conclusion. Typically, a stub will contain loader functionality like so: There are no restrictions on the contents of a Phar stub, except for the requirement that it conclude with __HALT_COMPILER();. The closing PHP tag ]]> may be included or omitted, but there can be no more than 1 space between the ; and the close tag ]]> or the phar extension will be unable to process the Phar archive's manifest. In a tar or zip-based phar archive, the stub is stored in the .phar/stub.php file. The default stub for phar-based Phar archives contains approximately 7k of code to extract the contents of the phar and execute them. See Phar::createDefaultStub for more detail. The phar alias is stored in a tar or zip-based phar archive in the .phar/alias.txt file as plain text.

What are the good and the bad things about the three supported file formats in the phar extension? This table attempts to address that question. Feature Phar Tar Zip Standard File Format No Yes Yes Can be executed without the Phar Extension [1] Yes No No Per-file compression Yes No Yes Whole-archive compression Yes Yes No Whole-archive signature validation Yes Yes Yes (PHP 5.3.1+) Web-specific application support Yes Yes Yes Per-file Meta-data Yes Yes Yes Whole-Archive Meta-data Yes Yes Yes Archive creation/modification [2] Yes Yes Yes Full support for all stream wrapper functions Yes Yes Yes Can be created/modified even if phar.readonly=1 [3] No Yes Yes [1] PHP can only directly access the contents of a Phar archive without the Phar extension if it is using a stub that extracts the contents of the phar archive. The stub created by Phar::createDefaultStub extracts the phar archive and runs its contents from a temporary directory if no phar extension is found. [2] All write access requires phar.readonly to be disabled in php.ini or on the command-line directly. [3] Only tar and zip archives without .phar in their filename and without an executable stub .phar/stub.php can be created if phar.readonly=1.

Archives based on the tar file format follow the more modern USTAR file format. The design of the tar file header makes them more efficient to access than the zip file format, and almost as efficient as the phar file format. File names are limited to 255 bytes, including full path within the phar archive. There is no limit on the number of files within a tar-based phar archive. These archives can fully compressed in gzip or bzip2 format and still be executed by the Phar extension. To compress an entire archive, use Phar::compress. To decompress an entire archive, use Phar::decompress.

Archives based on the zip file format support several features built into the zip file format. Per-file and whole-archive metadata is stored in the zip file comment and zip archive comment as a serialized string. Pre-existing zip comments will be successfully read as a string. Per-file compression read/write is supported with zlib compression, and read access is supported with bzip2 compression. There is no limit on the number of files within a zip-based phar archive. Empty directories are stored in the zip archive as files with a trailing slash like my/directory/

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: 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

Here are the bitmapped flags currently recognized by the Phar extension for the global Phar flat bitmap: Value Description 0x00010000 If set, this Phar contains a verification signature 0x00001000 If set, this Phar contains at least 1 file that is compressed with zlib compression 0x00002000 If set, this Phar contains at least 1 file that is compressed with bzip compression

Each file in the manifest contains the following information: Size in bytes Description 4 bytes Filename length in bytes ?? Filename (length specified in previous) 4 bytes Un-compressed file size in bytes 4 bytes Unix timestamp of file 4 bytes Compressed file size in bytes 4 bytes CRC32 checksum of un-compressed file contents 4 bytes Bit-mapped File-specific flags 4 bytes Serialized File Meta-data length (0 for none) ?? Serialized File Meta-data, stored in serialize format Note that as of API version 1.1.1, empty directories are stored as filenames with a trailing slash like my/directory/ The File-specific bitmap values recognized are: Value Description 0x000001FF These bits are reserved for defining specific file permissions of a file. Permissions are used for fstat and can be used to recreate desired permissions upon extraction. 0x00001000 If set, this file is compressed with zlib compression 0x00002000 If set, this file is compressed with bzip compression

Phars containing a signature always have the signature appended to the end of the Phar archive after the loader, manifest, and file contents. The two signature formats supported at this time are MD5 and SHA1. Length in bytes Description 16 or 20 bytes The actual signature, 20 bytes for an SHA1 signature, 16 bytes for an MD5 signature, 32 bytes for an SHA256 signature, and 64 bytes for an SHA512 signature. 4 bytes Signature flags. 0x0001 is used to define an MD5 signature, 0x0002 is used to define an SHA1 signature, 0x0004 is used to define an SHA256 signature, and 0x0008 is used to define an SHA512 signature. The SHA256 and SHA512 signature support was introduced with API version 1.1.0. 4 bytes Magic GBMB used to define the presence of a signature.