ZIP (file format)

The ZIP file format is a popular lossless data compression and archival format created by Phil Katz, founder of PKWARE. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce their file size, or stored as-is. A number of compression algorithms are permitted in zip files but in 2008 only DEFLATE is widely used and supported.

ZIP

Filename extension	.zip
Internet media type	application/zip
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI)	com.pkware.zip-archive
Magic number	PK\003\004 or PK\005\006 (empty archive) (unless a bootstrap script is present)
Developed by	Phil Katz
Type of format	Data compression

Usage

ZIP files generally use the file extensions ".zip" or ".ZIP" and the MIME media type application/zip. Some software uses the ZIP file format as a wrapper for a large number of small items in a specific structure. Generally when this is done a different file extension is used.