Usage

BFArchive is a tool that can list, create, and extract the contents of BigFix archives. It is simliar in function to the unix tar utility.

Listing the contents of an archive

To list the contents of an archive, use the -l or --list argument:

$ bfarchive --list archive

Creating a new archive

To create a new archive, use the -a or --create argument:

$ bfarchive --create /some/folder some_folder_archive

Extracting an archive

To extract the contents of an archive, use the -x or --extract argument:

$ bfarchive --extract some_folder_archive /some/folder

If no destination folder is specified, BFArchive will extract the archive into the current directory.

Reading from stdin

If the archive file argument is -, then BFArchive will read the archive contents from stdin. For example, you can list the contents of the defunct games site like this:

$ curl -s http://sync.bigfix.com/bfsites/games_29/__fullsite | bfarchive -l -

Verbose output

If you add v or --verbose when creating or extracting an archive, BFArchive will output the name of every file and directory as it is processing it.

$ bfarchive -xv some_archive /some/folder

File Format

The BigFix archive format first creates a tape archive of all of the contents of the directory, then compresses it. To extract an archive, you have to first decompress the file, then parse the contents of the tape archive.

Compression Format

First there is a 8 byte header that is always "##SC001" (including the null terminator). In hex this is:

0x23, 0x23, 0x53, 0x43, 0x30, 0x30, 0x31, 0x00

Next there is a 4 byte file checksum. This can sometimes be all zero.

Finally, the remainder of the file is compressed using the zlib deflate function. It can be decompressed using the zlib inflate function.

Archive Format

The archive is a list of file and directory entries. Each entry is encoded in the following format:

• 1 byte or 2 bytes: Entry header. The possible values are:
  • "21" the path is UTF-8 and the file length is 8 bytes long
  • "2_" the path is UTF-8 and the file length is 4 bytes long
  • "1" the path is in the local encoding and the file length is 8 bytes long
  • "_" the path is in the local encoding and the file length is 4 bytes long
• 1 byte: Path length. A length of 0 terminates the archive. This length includes the null terminator.
• <path length> bytes: File or directory path. If this ends with a '/', then it's a directory.
• 1 byte: Date length.
• <date length> bytes: The modification date string.
• 4 bytes or 8 bytes: The file length in little endian format. The length of this field depends on the entry header.
• <file length> bytes: The file contents.

Building

The build requires CMake and the tests require Python. On Windows, you'll also need Visual Studio 2012 to compile, and you'll need 7-Zip in your PATH to create the .zip file.

Linux & Mac

$ build

Windows x86

$ build x86 [zip]

Windows x64

$ build x64 [zip]

Support

Any issues or questions regarding this software should be filed via GitHub issues.