DISTZ

application/octet-stream

Safe

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.

Extension

.distz

MIME Type

application/octet-stream

Byte Offset

10

Risk Level

Safe

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

Related Formats