A phar (PHP archive) file. The phar format is a custom archive format from the PHP ecosystem that is used to package a complete PHP library or application into a single self-contained archive. All phar archives start with an executable PHP stub, which can be used to allow executing or including phar files as if they were regular PHP scripts. PHP 5.3 and later include the phar extension, which adds native support for reading and manipulating phar files.
The phar format was originally developed as part of the PEAR library PHP_Archive, first released in 2005. Later, a native PHP extension named "phar" was developed, which was first released on PECL in 2007, and is included with PHP 5.3 and later. The phar extension has effectively superseded the PHP_Archive library, which has not been updated since 2010. The phar extension is also no longer released independently on PECL; it is now developed and released as part of PHP itself.
Because of current limitations in Kaitai Struct (seekaitai-io/kaitai_struct#158 and kaitai-io/kaitai_struct#538), the executable PHP stub that precedes the rest of the archive is not handled by this spec. Before parsing a phar using this spec, the stub must be removed manually.
A phar's stub is terminated by the special token __HALT_COMPILER();
(which may be followed by at most one space, the PHP tag end ?>
,
and an optional line terminator). The stub termination sequence is
immediately followed by the remaining parts of the phar format,
as described in this spec.
The phar stub usually contains code that loads the phar and runs
a contained PHP file, but this is not required. A minimal valid phar stub
is <?php __HALT_COMPILER();
- such a stub makes it impossible to execute
the phar directly, but still allows loading or manipulating it using the
phar extension.
Note: The phar format does not specify any encoding for text fields (stub, alias name, and all file names), so these fields may contain arbitrary binary data. The actual text encoding used in a specific phar file usually depends on the application that created the phar, and on the standard encoding of the system on which the phar was created.
This page hosts a formal specification of PHP phar archive (without stub) using Kaitai Struct. This specification can be automatically translated into a variety of programming languages to get a parsing library.
meta:
id: phar_without_stub
title: PHP phar archive (without stub)
application: PHP
file-extension: phar
xref:
wikidata: Q1269709
license: CC0-1.0
ks-version: 0.9
imports:
- /serialization/php_serialized_value
endian: le
doc: |
A phar (PHP archive) file. The phar format is a custom archive format
from the PHP ecosystem that is used to package a complete PHP library
or application into a single self-contained archive.
All phar archives start with an executable PHP stub, which can be used to
allow executing or including phar files as if they were regular PHP scripts.
PHP 5.3 and later include the phar extension, which adds native support for
reading and manipulating phar files.
The phar format was originally developed as part of the PEAR library
PHP_Archive, first released in 2005. Later, a native PHP extension
named "phar" was developed, which was first released on PECL in 2007,
and is included with PHP 5.3 and later. The phar extension has effectively
superseded the PHP_Archive library, which has not been updated since 2010.
The phar extension is also no longer released independently on PECL;
it is now developed and released as part of PHP itself.
Because of current limitations in Kaitai Struct
(seekaitai-io/kaitai_struct#158 and kaitai-io/kaitai_struct#538),
the executable PHP stub that precedes the rest of the archive is not handled
by this spec. Before parsing a phar using this spec, the stub must be
removed manually.
A phar's stub is terminated by the special token `__HALT_COMPILER();`
(which may be followed by at most one space, the PHP tag end `?>`,
and an optional line terminator). The stub termination sequence is
immediately followed by the remaining parts of the phar format,
as described in this spec.
The phar stub usually contains code that loads the phar and runs
a contained PHP file, but this is not required. A minimal valid phar stub
is `<?php __HALT_COMPILER();` - such a stub makes it impossible to execute
the phar directly, but still allows loading or manipulating it using the
phar extension.
Note: The phar format does not specify any encoding for text fields
(stub, alias name, and all file names), so these fields may contain arbitrary
binary data. The actual text encoding used in a specific phar file usually
depends on the application that created the phar, and on the
standard encoding of the system on which the phar was created.
doc-ref:
- 'https://www.php.net/manual/en/phar.fileformat.php'
- 'https://github.com/php/php-src/tree/master/ext/phar'
- 'https://svn.php.net/viewvc/pecl/phar/'
- 'https://svn.php.net/viewvc/pear/packages/PHP_Archive/'
seq:
- id: manifest
type: manifest
doc: |
The archive's manifest, containing general metadata about the archive
and its files.
- id: files
size: manifest.file_entries[_index].len_data_compressed
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: manifest.num_files
doc: |
The contents of each file in the archive (possibly compressed,
as indicated by the file's flags in the manifest). The files are stored
in the same order as they appear in the manifest.
- id: signature
type: signature
size-eos: true
if: manifest.flags.has_signature
doc: |
The archive's signature - a digest of all archive data before
the signature itself.
Note: Almost all of the available "signature" types are actually hashes,
not signatures, and cannot be used to verify that the archive has not
been tampered with. Only the OpenSSL signature type is a true
cryptographic signature.
enums:
signature_type:
0x1:
id: md5
-orig-id: PHAR_SIG_MD5
doc: Indicates an MD5 hash.
0x2:
id: sha1
-orig-id: PHAR_SIG_SHA1
doc: Indicates a SHA-1 hash.
0x4:
id: sha256
-orig-id: PHAR_SIG_SHA256
doc: |
Indicates a SHA-256 hash. Available since API version 1.1.0,
PHP_Archive 0.12.0 and phar extension 1.1.0.
0x8:
id: sha512
-orig-id: PHAR_SIG_SHA512
doc: |
Indicates a SHA-512 hash. Available since API version 1.1.0,
PHP_Archive 0.12.0 and phar extension 1.1.0.
0x10:
id: openssl
-orig-id: PHAR_SIG_OPENSSL
doc: |
Indicates an OpenSSL signature. Available since API version 1.1.1,
PHP_Archive 0.12.0 (even though it claims to only support
API version 1.1.0) and phar extension 1.3.0. This type is not
documented in the phar extension's documentation of the phar format.
Note: In older versions of the phar extension, this value was used
for an undocumented and unimplemented "PGP" signature type
(`PHAR_SIG_PGP`).
types:
serialized_value:
seq:
- id: raw
size-eos: true
doc: The serialized value, as a raw byte array.
instances:
parsed:
pos: 0
type: php_serialized_value
doc: The serialized value, parsed as a structure.
file_flags:
seq:
- id: value
type: u4
doc: The unparsed flag bits.
instances:
permissions:
value: value & 0x1ff
-orig-id: PHAR_ENT_PERM_MASK
doc: The file's permission bits.
zlib_compressed:
value: (value & 0x1000) != 0
-orig-id: PHAR_ENT_COMPRESSED_GZ
doc: Whether this file's data is stored using zlib compression.
bzip2_compressed:
value: (value & 0x2000) != 0
-orig-id: PHAR_ENT_COMPRESSED_BZ2
doc: Whether this file's data is stored using bzip2 compression.
file_entry:
seq:
- id: len_filename
type: u4
doc: The length of the file name, in bytes.
- id: filename
size: len_filename
doc: |
The name of this file. If the name ends with a slash, this entry
represents a directory, otherwise a regular file. Directory entries
are supported since phar API version 1.1.1.
(Explicit directory entries are only needed for empty directories.
Non-empty directories are implied by the files located inside them.)
- id: len_data_uncompressed
type: u4
doc: The length of the file's data when uncompressed, in bytes.
- id: timestamp
type: u4
doc: |
The time at which the file was added or last updated, as a
Unix timestamp.
- id: len_data_compressed
type: u4
doc: The length of the file's data when compressed, in bytes.
- id: crc32
type: u4
doc: The CRC32 checksum of the file's uncompressed data.
- id: flags
type: file_flags
doc: Flags for this file.
- id: len_metadata
type: u4
doc: The length of the metadata, in bytes, or 0 if there is none.
- id: metadata
size: len_metadata
type: serialized_value
if: len_metadata != 0
doc: |
Metadata for this file, in the format used by PHP's
`serialize` function. The meaning of the serialized data is not
specified further, it may be used to store arbitrary custom data
about the file.
api_version:
meta:
endian: be
doc: |
A phar API version number. This version number is meant to indicate
which features are used in a specific phar, so that tools reading
the phar can easily check that they support all necessary features.
The following API versions exist so far:
* 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.7.1: The first official API versions. At this point,
the phar format was only used by the PHP_Archive library, and the
API version numbers were identical to the PHP_Archive versions that
supported them. Development of the native phar extension started around
API version 0.7. These API versions could only be queried using the
`PHP_Archive::APIversion()` method, but were not stored physically
in archives. These API versions are not supported by this spec.
* 0.8.0: Used by PHP_Archive 0.8.0 (released 2006-07-18) and
later development versions of the phar extension. This is the first
version number to be physically stored in archives. This API version
is not supported by this spec.
* 0.9.0: Used by later development/early beta versions of the
phar extension. Also temporarily used by PHP_Archive 0.9.0
(released 2006-12-15), but reverted back to API version 0.8.0 in
PHP_Archive 0.9.1 (released 2007-01-05).
* 1.0.0: Supported since PHP_Archive 0.10.0 (released 2007-05-29)
and phar extension 1.0.0 (released 2007-03-28). This is the first
stable, forwards-compatible and documented version of the format.
* 1.1.0: Supported since PHP_Archive 0.12.0 (released 2015-07-06)
and phar extension 1.1.0 (released 2007-04-12). Adds SHA-256 and
SHA-512 signature types.
* 1.1.1: Supported since phar extension 2.0.0 (released 2009-07-29 and
included with PHP 5.3 and later). (PHP_Archive 0.12.0 also supports
all features from API verison 1.1.1, but it reports API version 1.1.0.)
Adds the OpenSSL signature type and support for storing
empty directories.
seq:
- id: release
type: b4
- id: major
type: b4
- id: minor
type: b4
- id: unused
type: b4
global_flags:
seq:
- id: value
type: u4
doc: The unparsed flag bits.
instances:
any_zlib_compressed:
value: (value & 0x1000) != 0
-orig-id: PHAR_HDR_COMPRESSED_GZ
doc: |
Whether any of the files in this phar are stored using
zlib compression.
any_bzip2_compressed:
value: (value & 0x2000) != 0
-orig-id: PHAR_HDR_COMPRESSED_BZ2
doc: |
Whether any of the files in this phar are stored using
bzip2 compression.
has_signature:
value: (value & 0x10000) != 0
-orig-id: PHAR_HDR_SIGNATURE
doc: Whether this phar contains a signature.
manifest:
seq:
- id: len_manifest
type: u4
doc: |
The length of the manifest, in bytes.
Note: The phar extension does not allow reading manifests
larger than 100 MiB.
- id: num_files
type: u4
doc: The number of files in this phar.
- id: api_version
type: api_version
doc: The API version used by this phar manifest.
- id: flags
type: global_flags
doc: Global flags for this phar.
- id: len_alias
type: u4
doc: The length of the alias, in bytes.
- id: alias
size: len_alias
doc: |
The phar's alias, i. e. the name under which it is loaded into PHP.
- id: len_metadata
type: u4
doc: The size of the metadata, in bytes, or 0 if there is none.
- id: metadata
size: len_metadata
type: serialized_value
if: len_metadata != 0
doc: |
Metadata for this phar, in the format used by PHP's
`serialize` function. The meaning of the serialized data is not
specified further, it may be used to store arbitrary custom data
about the archive.
- id: file_entries
type: file_entry
repeat: expr
repeat-expr: num_files
doc: Manifest entries for the files contained in this phar.
signature:
seq:
- id: data
size: _io.size - _io.pos - 8
doc: |
The signature data. The size and contents depend on the
signature type.
- id: type
type: u4
enum: signature_type
doc: The signature type.
- id: magic
contents: "GBMB"