Head-to-head comparison of Phar, Tar and Zip
What are the good and the bad things about the three supported file formats in the phar extension? This table attempts to address that question.
| Feature | Phar | Tar | Zip |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard File Format | No | Yes | Yes |
| Can be executed without the Phar Extension [1] | Yes | No | No |
| Per-file compression | Yes | No | Yes |
| Whole-archive compression | Yes | Yes | No |
| Whole-archive signature validation | Yes | Yes | Yes (PHP 5.3.1+) |
| Web-specific application support | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Per-file Meta-data | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Whole-Archive Meta-data | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Archive creation/modification [2] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Full support for all stream wrapper functions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Can be created/modified even if phar.readonly=1 [3] | No | Yes | Yes |
[1] PHP can only directly access the contents of a Phar archive without the Phar extension if it is using a stub that extracts the contents of the phar archive. The stub created by Phar::createDefaultStub() extracts the phar archive and runs its contents from a temporary directory if no phar extension is found.
[2] All write access requires phar.readonly to be disabled in php.ini or on the command-line directly.
[3] Only tar and zip archives without .phar in their filename and without an executable stub .phar/stub.php can be created if phar.readonly=1.