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ZARSharp Documentation

Welcome to the ZARSharp documentation. This guide covers everything you need to know about using ZARSharp for archive creation, zstd compression, and batch processing.

Table of Contents

Getting Started

• Getting-Started — Installation, prerequisites, and your first archive
• CLI-Reference — Command-line tool usage and options

Core Concepts

• ZAR-Format — Archive format specification, structure, and design decisions
• Zstd-Compression — Compression levels, strategies, and tuning guide
• Seekable-Format — Seekable zstd framing (Foot + Head tables)

API Documentation

• API-Reference — Complete library API for all public types and methods
• Pipeline — Batch operations, progress reporting, and collision handling

Advanced Topics

• Benchmarks — Performance characteristics and optimization tips
• FAQ — Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting

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Overview

ZARSharp is a pure-C# port of the ZArchive 0.1.2 library. It provides:

1. Archive format — Directory-tree archives with per-block zstd compression (64 KiB blocks)
2. zstd codec — Complete RFC 8878 encoder and decoder (levels 1–22, all 9 strategies)
3. Seekable format — zeekstd-compatible seekable zstd framing
4. Pipeline — Batch pack/extract with progress, pause, cancellation, and collision policies
5. CLI tool — zar command matching zarchive.exe behavior

Key Properties

Property	Value
Target frameworks	net8.0, net9.0, net10.0
Runtime dependencies	None (BCL only)
Unsafe code	None in the zstd path
Trimmable	Yes
AOT compatible	Yes
License	MIT

Byte-Identity Guarantee

ZARSharp produces byte-identical output to:

• The original C++ zarchive.exe (ZArchive 0.1.2)
• libzstd 1.5.7 (frozen reference)
• zeekstd (seekable format)

This is verified by over 3800 tests including parity validation against native tools.

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Quick Links

Topic	Description
Getting-Started#installation	How to install ZARSharp
Getting-Started#packing-a-directory	Create your first archive
Getting-Started#extracting-an-archive	Extract archive contents
CLI-Reference#usage	Command-line tool reference
Zstd-Compression#compression-levels	Choosing the right level
Pipeline#basic-usage	Batch operations
API-Reference#error-handling	Exception types and handling