Overview
KB
Technical FAQ
PHP Manual
CSS2 Manual
HTML Manual
JS Guide
JS Reference
PhpDock Manual
Nu-Coder Manual
PhpExpress Manual
PHP Joomla
Development
Learn PHP
 
<What makes a phar a phar and not a tar or a zip?Phar file stub>
^What makes a phar a phar and not a tar or a zip?Last updated: Mon, 26 Oct 2026

Ingredients of all Phar archives, independent of file format

All Phar archives contain three to four sections:

  1. a stub

  2. a manifest describing the contents

  3. the file contents

  4. [optional] a signature for verifying Phar integrity (phar file format only)


<What makes a phar a phar and not a tar or a zip?Phar file stub>
^What makes a phar a phar and not a tar or a zip?Last updated: Mon, 26 Oct 2026