DISTZ
application/octet-stream
Magic Bytes
Offset: 10
23 20 54 68 69 73 20 69 73 20 61 20 73 68 65 6C 6C 20 61 72 63 68 69 76 65
DISTZ is a legacy file format based on the Unix Shell Archive (shar) standard, originally developed for software distribution on early Unix-like systems. The format functions as a self-extracting shell script that concatenates multiple files into a single text-based archive to simplify file management and transmission. While useful in historical networking environments for emailing source code, this obsolete format has been entirely replaced by modern compression utilities like TAR and GZIP.
Validation Code
How to validate .distz files in Python
Python
def is_distz(file_path: str) -> bool:
"""
Check if file is a valid DISTZ by magic bytes.
Signature offset: 10 bytes
"""
signature = bytes([0x23, 0x20, 0x54, 0x68, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x61, 0x20, 0x73, 0x68, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x20, 0x61, 0x72, 0x63, 0x68, 0x69, 0x76, 0x65])
with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
f.seek(10)
return f.read(25) == signature
How to validate .distz files in Node.js
Node.js
function isDISTZ(buffer: Buffer): boolean {
// Signature offset: 10 bytes
const signature = Buffer.from([0x23, 0x20, 0x54, 0x68, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x61, 0x20, 0x73, 0x68, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x20, 0x61, 0x72, 0x63, 0x68, 0x69, 0x76, 0x65]);
if (buffer.length < 35) return false;
return buffer.subarray(10, 35).equals(signature);
}
Go
func IsDISTZ(data []byte) bool {
// Signature offset: 10 bytes
signature := []byte{0x23, 0x20, 0x54, 0x68, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x61, 0x20, 0x73, 0x68, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x20, 0x61, 0x72, 0x63, 0x68, 0x69, 0x76, 0x65}
if len(data) < 35 {
return false
}
return bytes.Equal(data[10:35], signature)
}
API Endpoint
GET
/api/v1/distz
curl https://filesignature.org/api/v1/distz