Archive Utility

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Archive Utility
Developed by	Apple Computer
Latest release	10.5 / 2007-10-26
OS	Mac OS X
Genre	File archiver
Website	http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Archive Utility (BOMArchiveHelper until Mac OS X 10.5) is the default archive file handler in Mac OS X. It is a service application that has no GUI other than setting preferences when double-clicked, rather it is invoked by double-clicking one of its supported file formats. It can be used to create compressed archives by choosing "Create archive of 'file'" (Leopard: "Compress") in the Finder's File or contextual menu. It is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Archive Utility.app in 10.5, and /System/Library/CoreServices/BOMArchiveHelper.app in 10.4. Prior to its inclusion in Mac OS X v10.3, many users used the freeware StuffIt Expander for almost all archive decompression.

BOM is an abbreviation of Bill of Materials. Bill of Materials files or .bom files are used by the Mac OS X Installer program to document where files in an installer bundle are installed, what their file permissions should be, and other file metadata. Thus, a Bill of Materials is read by the Installer, and Archive Utility helps it by extracting the files specified in the BOM.

[edit] Supported formats

• bom (.bom) ^[1]
• bzip2 (.bz, .bz2)
• cpgz (cpio gziped)
• cpio (.cpio)
• gz (.gzip, .gz)
• tar (.tar)
• tgz (tar gziped)
• tbz, tbz2 (tar bziped)
• compress (.Z)
• UUencode
• ZIP (.zip) – password-protected ZIP archives are not supported

Notes:

1. ^  bom is not really an archive format, but is listed here because Archive Utility is capable of parsing these files.

[edit] See also

• List of file archivers
• Comparison of file archivers

[edit] External links

• man page for bom
• Apple Manual page for lsbom which lists the contents of BOM files