Jump to content

Self-extracting archive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dcclark (talk | contribs) at 00:48, 17 August 2006 (cleanup, needs categories). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

A self-extracting archive is an application which contains the compressed version of another file, as well as code to decompress this information. The file can thus be read by anyone using the same platform as the compressor, whether they posess the appropriate decompression program or not.

For example, if you want to distribute a 7Zip or Zip Archive but dont know if the other person has a program cabable of reading 7Zip or 7Zip, then you could create a SFX file, which is short for Self-extracting archive or Self Extractor. A Self Extracting Archive is an archive that doesn't need the plugin for the arhive formatIt is a standard Windows Executable file.

StuffIt for the Macintosh and Compact Pro both made use of self-extracting archives.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Self-extracting_archive&oldid=70132785"