RAR version 3.

91 - Technical information
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THE ARCHIVE FORMAT DESCRIBED BELOW IS ONLY VALID FOR VERSIONS SINCE 1.50
==========================================================================
RAR archive file format
==========================================================================
Archive file consists of variable length blocks. The order of these
blocks may vary, but the first block must be a marker block followed by
an archive header block.
Each block begins with the following fields:
HEAD_CRC
HEAD_TYPE
HEAD_FLAGS
HEAD_SIZE
ADD_SIZE

2
1
2
2
4

bytes
byte
bytes
bytes
bytes

CRC of total block or block part

Block type
Block flags
Block size
Optional field - added block size

Field ADD_SIZE present only if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x8000) != 0

Total block size is HEAD_SIZE if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x8000) == 0
and HEAD_SIZE+ADD_SIZE if the field ADD_SIZE is present - when
(HEAD_FLAGS & 0x8000) != 0.
In each block the followings bits in HEAD_FLAGS have the same meaning:
0x4000 - if set, older
and remove it
if clear, the
file when the

RAR versions will ignore the block

when the archive is updated.
block is copied to the new archive
archive is updated;

0x8000 - if set, ADD_SIZE field is present and the full block

size is HEAD_SIZE+ADD_SIZE.
Declared block types:
HEAD_TYPE=0x72
HEAD_TYPE=0x73
HEAD_TYPE=0x74
HEAD_TYPE=0x75
HEAD_TYPE=0x76
HEAD_TYPE=0x77
HEAD_TYPE=0x78
HEAD_TYPE=0x79
HEAD_TYPE=0x7a

marker block
archive header
file header
old style comment header
old style authenticity information
old style subblock
old style recovery record
old style authenticity information
subblock

Comment block is actually used only within other blocks and doesn't
exist separately.
Archive processing is made in the following manner:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Read and check marker block

Read archive header
Read or skip HEAD_SIZE-sizeof(MAIN_HEAD) bytes
If end of archive encountered then terminate archive processing,
else read 7 bytes into fields HEAD_CRC, HEAD_TYPE, HEAD_FLAGS,

HEAD_SIZE.
5. Check HEAD_TYPE.
if HEAD_TYPE==0x74
read file header ( first 7 bytes already read )
read or skip HEAD_SIZE-sizeof(FILE_HEAD) bytes
if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x100)
read or skip HIGH_PACK_SIZE*0x100000000+PACK_SIZE bytes
else
read or skip PACK_SIZE bytes
else
read corresponding HEAD_TYPE block:
read HEAD_SIZE-7 bytes
if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x8000)
read ADD_SIZE bytes
6. go to 4.
==========================================================================
Block Formats
==========================================================================
Marker block ( MARK_HEAD )
HEAD_CRC
2 bytes

Always 0x6152

HEAD_TYPE
1 byte

Header type: 0x72

HEAD_FLAGS
2 bytes

Always 0x1a21

HEAD_SIZE
2 bytes

Block size = 0x0007

The marker block is actually considered as a fixed byte

sequence: 0x52 0x61 0x72 0x21 0x1a 0x07 0x00

Archive header ( MAIN_HEAD )

HEAD_CRC
2 bytes

CRC of fields HEAD_TYPE to RESERVED2

HEAD_TYPE
1 byte

Header type: 0x73

HEAD_FLAGS
2 bytes

Bit flags:
0x0001 - Volume attribute (archive volume)
0x0002 - Archive comment present
RAR 3.x uses the separate comment block
and does not set this flag.
0x0004 - Archive lock attribute
0x0008 - Solid attribute (solid archive)

0x0010 - New volume naming scheme ('volname.partN.rar')

0x0020 - Authenticity information present
RAR 3.x does not set this flag.
0x0040 - Recovery record present
0x0080 - Block headers are encrypted
0x0100 - First volume (set only by RAR 3.0 and later)
other bits in HEAD_FLAGS are reserved for
internal use
HEAD_SIZE
2 bytes

Archive header total size including archive comments

RESERVED1
2 bytes

Reserved

RESERVED2
4 bytes

Reserved

File header (File in archive)

HEAD_CRC
2 bytes

CRC of fields from HEAD_TYPE to FILEATTR

and file name

HEAD_TYPE
1 byte

Header type: 0x74

HEAD_FLAGS
2 bytes

Bit flags:
0x01 - file continued from previous volume
0x02 - file continued in next volume
0x04 - file encrypted with password
0x08 - file comment present
RAR 3.x uses the separate comment block
and does not set this flag.
0x10 - information from previous files is used (solid flag)
(for RAR 2.0 and later)
bits 7 6 5 (for RAR 2.0 and later)
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
1

0
0
1
1
0
0
1
1

0
1
0
1
0
1
0
1

dictionary size 64
dictionary size 128
dictionary size 256
dictionary size 512
dictionary size 1024
dictionary size 2048
dictionary size 4096
file is directory

KB
KB
KB
KB
KB
KB
KB

0x100 - HIGH_PACK_SIZE and HIGH_UNP_SIZE fields

are present. These fields are used to archive
only very large files (larger than 2Gb),
for smaller files these fields are absent.

0x200 - FILE_NAME contains both usual and encoded

Unicode name separated by zero. In this case
NAME_SIZE field is equal to the length
of usual name plus encoded Unicode name plus 1.
If this flag is present, but FILE_NAME does not
contain zero bytes, it means that file name
is encoded using UTF-8.
0x400 - the header contains additional 8 bytes
after the file name, which are required to
increase encryption security (so called 'salt').
0x800 - Version flag. It is an old file version,
a version number is appended to file name as ';n'.
0x1000 - Extended time field present.
0x8000 - this bit always is set, so the complete
block size is HEAD_SIZE + PACK_SIZE
(and plus HIGH_PACK_SIZE, if bit 0x100 is set)
HEAD_SIZE
2 bytes

File header full size including file name and comments

PACK_SIZE
4 bytes

Compressed file size

UNP_SIZE
4 bytes

Uncompressed file size

HOST_OS
1 byte

Operating system used for archiving

0 - MS DOS
1 - OS/2
2 - Win32
3 - Unix
4 - Mac OS
5 - BeOS

FILE_CRC
4 bytes

File CRC

FTIME
4 bytes

Date and time in standard MS DOS format

UNP_VER
1 byte

RAR version needed to extract file

Version number is encoded as
10 * Major version + minor version.

METHOD
1 byte

Packing method
0x30
0x31
0x32
0x33
0x34
0x35

NAME_SIZE

storing
fastest compression
fast compression
normal compression
good compression
best compression

File name size

2 bytes
ATTR
4 bytes

File attributes

HIGH_PACK_SIZE High 4 bytes of 64 bit value of compressed file size.

4 bytes
Optional value, presents only if bit 0x100 in HEAD_FLAGS
is set.
HIGH_UNP_SIZE
4 bytes

High 4 bytes of 64 bit value of uncompressed file size.

Optional value, presents only if bit 0x100 in HEAD_FLAGS
is set.

FILE_NAME

File name - string of NAME_SIZE bytes size

SALT
8 bytes

present if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x400) != 0

EXT_TIME
variable size

present if (HEAD_FLAGS & 0x1000) != 0

other new fields may appear here.

==========================================================================
Application notes
==========================================================================
1. To process an SFX archive you need to skip the SFX module searching
for the marker block in the archive. There is no marker block sequence (0x52
0x61 0x72 0x21 0x1a 0x07 0x00) in the SFX module itself.
2. The CRC is calculated using the standard polynomial 0xEDB88320. In
case the size of the CRC is less than 4 bytes, only the low order bytes
are used.