Question:
What is the meaning of ZIP file.?
nick n
2006-11-13 00:48:47 UTC
What is the meaning of ZIP file.?
Fourteen answers:
JustMe
2006-11-13 02:26:18 UTC
ZIP File is defined by most dictionaries as a popular standard for file compression on the PC. You can recognize it by the .zip file extension. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed or stored. The ZIP file format was originally created by Phil Katz, founder of PKWARE.



For more details you may visit this site -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_file_format#History
K.R
2006-11-13 03:34:31 UTC
Zipping is the act of packaging a set of files into a single file or archive that is called a zip file. Usually, the files in a zip file are compressed so that they take up less space in storage or take less time to send to someone. There are several popular tools that can be used for zipping files: PKZIP for the DOS operating system, WinZip and Netzip for Windows, MacZip for Macintosh users, and Zip and UnZip for UNIX systems. The result of zipping is a single file with a ".zip" suffix. After you receive a zip file, you may have to extract and decompress the file by using the same kind of tool that was used to zip the original file.



Most software that you download from the Internet will arrive as a self-extracting zip file. Typically, by double-clicking on a self-extracting zip file, it will automatically extract, decompress, and store the individual files. One of these files is usually called the "setup.exe" file. Double-clicking on this file will cause the software to be installed as a selectable program in your operating system.
Rahulouce
2006-11-13 03:04:06 UTC
ZIP:

(file format), a popular data compression and archival format



In this software u can have both win Rar and win zip



Win Rar : u can divide the software in to no. of division

Win zip : u can add any no. of file u wanted and that final file is by default is treated as single file which is having the less size compared to ur file having the size

EX:

If a word file is say 2 MB when u win zip it then it will be compressed to a file of nearly half the file of less many times

(because, the white spaces r considered as free space and that is not considered in the file)



The ZIP file format is a popular data compression and archival format. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed or stored



ZIP files generally use the file extensions ".zip" or ".ZIP"

EX: for picture file u use .jpg, .gif, psd, .etc..,
Rajesh K
2006-11-13 21:20:30 UTC
A Zip file is a file format whose data is compressed and stored in an archived format. You need WinZip to unzip the files stored inside it.

Now can see that even Windows Xp Xp has an option called Compressed Zip Folder

When any install and Archiever, you can find that these are stored as ZIP files
2006-11-13 04:02:17 UTC
A zip file is a file having extension .zip it is a file which is either compressed or made self extractable or as such .... in this file there can be more than one file or files ....



the most basic program which is used on windows operating system to make or unzip a file is Winzip .... the zip command can and was also used in dos in olden days...



zip files can also be mad self extractor like a setup file to extract itself to a folder when executed or double clicked.... it can be compressed in varied formats ... i.e. high compression or just compression or just zipping.....
Krishna
2006-11-13 02:22:20 UTC
What is a ZIP File?

What does ZIP and UNZIP mean?

A zip file is a single compressed file that contains a complete set of program files. Compressed files are valuable in the electronic world because they cut your downloading time drastically, and make it possible to download just one file instead of a number of different files (which can often number in the dozens or even hundreds).



To decompress (meaning UNZIP) a compressed file (meaning a ZIP or zipped file), you'll need a special program like those listed below. They themselves are compressed, but with a kind of compression called 'self-extracting' which means that after you download and double-click on them from Windows Explorer, they will automatically extract the compressed file to a download folder. If this all sounds like Klingon to you, please read our How to Download a File FAQ.



How to UNZIP

After downloading a ZIP file, open Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) and double-click on the file name. This will (normally) open the ZIP file in your preferred ZIP tool, giving you a list of files in the ZIP archive.



ZIP tools will have a command to copy files out of the compressed archive, normally called 'Extract'. Select this command, and you will be prompted for a folder where the extracted files will be placed; the best place to put extracted files is in a special temporary folder (for example 'C:\WORK').



Now, still using Windows Explorer, look in the folder where you extracted the files and look for a file with a name like 'readme.txt' or 'install.txt' which will contain instructions which you can read by opening the file in NotePad. Or if you want, you can go directly to the file with a name like 'setup.exe' or 'install.exe' which, if you double-click on it, will bring up the applications installation program.



After installing the program and seeing that it works properly, you can go back to the temporary directory where you decompressed the files and erase them in order to save disk space.



If you see some sort of error message when opening the ZIP file or extracting files, it's possible that the file was not completely downloaded - this can happen occasionally with large files. To fix this, the best thing is to download the file again.



Some Zip Tools

Here are links to just a few of the many freeware and shareware ZIP tools:



PKZIP - The original!

WinZip - Very highly regarded

Info-Zip WiZ
Shaj
2006-11-13 02:08:23 UTC
Zip file is a compressed file. Any file can be compressed into a zip file. The extend of compressibility depends on the format of the file. Say, in the case of non-compressed files like BMP or DOC the compressibility will be more. Whereas in the case of compreseed formats like JPG, MP3 etc the compression rate will be comparitively less.



Zip is a non-lossy compression. ie you don't loss any information when a file is compressed to zip.



You can zip a file using softwares like WinZip, WinAce, WinRar, PowerZip etc. The extension on a zipped file will be .ZIP.
Cupid s
2006-11-13 01:46:05 UTC
ZIP file uses the extension .zip and is a compressed file which uses less space in the storage drive.



For instance, if a file is using 1 mb in standard format it may use 300 mb in zip format.



Various programs which are used to zip or unzip any file or folder are winrar, winzip, etc.



Thanks.
2016-03-28 07:58:42 UTC
It's file that contains one or more files that are compressed into the ZIP format to make them smaller. You just need to unzip or decompress them - right click on the file. You can then extract the files you want.
rishitakumar17
2006-11-13 01:46:56 UTC
zip files are compressed version of regular files.any file or files can be compressed into one single zip file in order to reduce the total file size on teh disk. this is done using the winzip software.

the compressed file is easier to transfer (because of the reduced size) and can later be unzipped to get the original files. unzipping / extracting is also done using the same software.
Ameeta
2006-11-13 01:35:38 UTC
A Zip file is a file format whose data is compressed and stored in an archived format. You need WinZip to unzip the files stored inside it.

You can get it here http://www.winzip.com
Albin
2006-11-13 00:52:06 UTC
One file which contain one or more than one file and it i s compressed that is what is known as a zip file.



different formats are there
sumitbhola
2006-11-13 02:52:04 UTC
to compress a file is called as zip file

means to pack maximum files forcefully in small box , its a safe procesure.
Basement Bob
2006-11-13 02:20:00 UTC
ZIP (file format)

ZIP File extension: .zip

MIME type: application/zip

Type code: com.pkware.zip-archive

Magic: PK\003\004

Developed by: Phil Katz

Type of format: Data compression



The ZIP file format is a popular data compression and archival format. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed or stored.



The format was originally designed by Phil Katz for PKZIP. However, many software utilities other than PKZIP itself are now available to create, modify or open ZIP files, notably WinZip, BOMArchiveHelper, PicoZip, Info-ZIP, WinRAR, IZArc and 7-Zip. Microsoft has also included minimal built-in ZIP support (under the name "compressed folders") in later versions of its Windows operating system. Apple also included built-in ZIP support in Mac OS X v10.3 and later.



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. Examples of this usage are Java JAR files, id Software .pk3/.pk4 files, package files for StepMania and Winamp/Windows Media Player skins, XPInstall, and some OpenOffice.org document formats. The OpenDocument format usually uses the JAR file format internally, so it can be easily uncompressed and compressed using tools for ZIP files.





History



Early history

The ZIP file format was originally created by Phil Katz, founder of PKWARE, after a prolonged legal dispute between PKWare and System Enhancement Associates (SEA) over the trademark name "ARC" (short for "Archive") and the file name extension .arc



PKWare's first archive product, PKARC, borrowed heavily from SEA's published code, and improved on it by converting SEA's ARC C code into hand optimised assembler, which was much faster. PKARC also used the ".ARC" file name extension. SEA contended that Katz had based his product on their code and trademark name, and thus ought to license the code from them and pay royalties. PKWare refused. SEA brought a successful copyright infringement lawsuit against Phil Katz and PKWare. After suit was brought, Katz briefly released a relabeled version of PKARC named PKPAK in a futile effort to invalidate the suit.



During settlement, Katz still refused to pay license fees to SEA, instead agreeing to pay SEA's legal fees and stop selling PKARC. He then went on to create his own file format, which is known worldwide now as the ZIP format (commonly called a ZIP File). The ZIP format he designed was more resistant to data loss than the ARC format because of redundant catalog storage; it also was more flexible than ARC, providing room for additional optional compression algorithms and room for future expansion. Along with the new format, PKZIP included at least one more efficient compression algorithm than any supported by ARC. Once the PKZIP software was released, many users abandoned ARC because of its slower speed and less effective compression performance, and because Katz had successfully put forth the idea that he was the "good guy" who was being unfairly treated by an evil corporation.



Katz publicly released technical documentation on the ZIP file format, along with the first version of his PKZIP archiver, in January 1989.



The name zip (meaning speed) was suggested by Katz's friend Robert Mahoney. They wanted to imply that their product would be faster than ARC and other compression formats of the time.





Moving beyond the command line

In the mid 1990s, as more new computers included graphical user interfaces, there were more users who were not comfortable with the command-line operation of PKZIP. Seeing an opportunity, shareware authors began pitching compression and archival programs with graphical user interfaces. Many of these used the ZIP format. WinZip was among the most popular. PKWare (Katz's company) also offered a graphical version of PKZip. These graphical compression programs were easier to learn to use than the older command-line equivalents, but they still required learning an additional program and an additional interface just for compression.



An open source implementation of Phil Katz's "deflate" and "inflate" routines was released. The free code released by the Info-ZIP project under a BSD license spawned a horde of PKZIP imitators (WinZip, PicoZip, PowerArchiver, Turbozip, PowerZip and many more), establishing the PKZIP file format as a de facto industry standard.



The first version of what would become Info-ZIP was published by Samuel Smith in March 1989, complete with the source code in both Pascal and C forms. In September he released 2.0, including support for the new "implode" method that had been added to PKZIP 1.01. A port to Unix was released by Carl Mascott and John Cowan in December.



In March 1990 a number of interested parties set up a mail list on a disused DEC-20 mainframe at the White Sands Missile Range, agreeing to form a group to clean up the code and make it officially public. In May the first version of this code was released, as Info-ZIP 3.0.



In 1994 and 1995 Info-ZIP turned a corner, and effectively became the de facto ZIP program. A huge number of ports were released that year, including numerous minicomputers, mainframes and practically every microcomputer ever developed. All the while the software had continued to add support for newer compression systems being added to PKZIP, eventually this happened so quickly that there was no reason to use PKZIP. It was also in 1995 that the principal maintainers start to work heavily on the PNG format, and changes to Info-ZIP slowed.



In the late 1990s, various file manager software products started integrating support for the ZIP format into the file manager user interface. Even before that, Norton Commander and clones like Volkov Commander in DOS started that trend, and that remains the norm for the "Commander-like" or Orthodox file managers like Midnight Commander (Linux and UNIX like systems) and Total Commander, previously Windows Commander (Windows). The KDE file manager (kfm) supported this very early, and support was also added to Windows Explorer first with Plus! for Windows 98 and later included with Windows Me and Windows XP, the Mac OS Finder (as of Mac OS X, via the BOMArchiveHelper utility), the Nautilus file manager used with GNOME, the Konqueror file manager used with newer versions of KDE, and others. By 2002, all major desktop environments included ZIP file support in their file managers. Typically, in any modern file manager, a ZIP file may be treated as a directory or folder, so that files are copied into and out of it in the same manner as any other folder; the compression is handled in a way that is largely transparent to the end user. This eliminates the need for the user to learn to use a program and an interface just for the purpose of compression and archival, since the same interface can be used as for regular file management.





Technical information

ZIP is a fairly simple archive format that compresses every file separately. Compressing files separately allows for individual files to be retrieved without reading through other data; in theory, it may allow better compression by using different algorithms for different files. However a caveat to this is that archives containing a large number of small files end up significantly larger than if they were compressed as a single file (the classic example of the latter is the common tar.gz archive which consists of a TAR archive compressed using gzip).



The specification for ZIP indicates that files can be stored either uncompressed or using a variety of compression algorithms. However, in practice, ZIP is almost always used with Katz's DEFLATE algorithm, except when files being added are already compressed or are resistant to compression.



ZIP supports a simple password based symmetric encryption system which is known to be seriously flawed. In particular it is vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks which are in some cases made worse by poor implementations of random number generators[1]. It also supports spreading archives across multiple removable disks (generally floppy disks, but it could also be used with other removable media).



New features including new compression and encryption methods have been added to ZIP in more recent times, but these are not supported by many tools and are not in wide use.



Most zip programs support at most 4GB files; though various vendors have "64-bit extended format"s to store larger files. It's not clear if the various vendors use the same formats for large files.



The FAT filesystem of DOS only has a granularity of two seconds; the Zip file records mimic this. As a result, the granularity of files in a Zip archive is only two seconds.



The Info-ZIP implementations of the Zip format adds support for Unix filesystem features, such as user and group IDs, file permissions, and support for symbolic links. The Apache Ant implementation is aware of them to the extent that it can create files with predefined Unix permissions.



The Info-ZIP Windows tools also support NTFS filesystem permissions, and will make an attempt to translate from NTFS permissions to Unix permissions or vice-versa when extracting files. This is sometimes annoying, and can result in undesireable combinations, e.g. .exe files being created on NTFS volumes with executable permission denied.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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