Starting with APPNOTE v4.0, APPNOTEs have a clear version number and a date. This era apparently lasted until the release of APPNOTE v4.0, dated. It wouldn’t have just been via a website, because the web was a new thing at the beginning of this era.
It’s not clear to me how these APPNOTEs were distributed. There could be any number of APPNOTEs from this era whose existence I’m not aware of. They can generally be assigned a release date, but it’s hard to be sure you’ve got it right. With the release of PKZIP 2.04c in late 1992, we enter a murky era in which APPNOTEs were de-coupled from the software, but still lack a version number.
PKWARE APPNOTE SOFTWARE
These documents do not have any dates or meaningful version numbers in them.īasically, through v1.10, there is no distinction between the format version, the software version, and the APPNOTE version. APPNOTE eras and categories Era 1Įach version of the PKZIP software through 1.93 includes documentation of the file format, usually in a file named APPNOTE.TXT. Note that a version number like “4.5.0” is the same as “4.5”. Two older APPNOTEs were retroactively assigned version numbers: 1.0 and 2.0. Only APPNOTES from about v4.0 on tell us their specification version number. Later documentation (as of APPNOTE-6.2.0) says they are specification version numbers.ĪPPNOTE versions from about 6.1.0 on include a nice table of the “version needed to extract” for various features. These in-file version numbers were originally documented as being software version numbers.
PKWARE APPNOTE ZIP
Later versions of APPNOTE have three-component version numbers like “6.3.5”, though there is no standard way to encode the “.5” part in a ZIP file. These version numbers have a strict format: an integer major version number, and a minor version number that can only be 0 through 9. Inside a ZIP file, every member file has two version numbers stored with it: A “version made by” number, and a “version needed to extract” number. With ZIP/PKZIP, these concepts are conflated in confusing ways.
The version of the specifications document that defines the format.The version of the software associated with the format.Very generally, there are at least three different kinds of versions that might be relevant: These are plain text files, and I encountered many of the typical problems that can make it difficult to compare two text files: different line ending codes, different amounts of indentation, different word wrapping, etc. The APPNOTE.TXT filename is not actually specific to ZIP, as it was also used by the predecessor PKARC/PKPAK software (for a different format). For convenience, I’ll use “APPNOTE” to refer to it, regardless of the actual filename. The ZIP format documentation is usually found in a file named APPNOTE.TXT. This research is not as complete as it could be, but I’ve spent too much time on it already, so I’m writing up what I know. Many ZIP files that use the old format versions are still around, while nobody uses the old software versions. I think the format versions are more important than the software versions. That sounds like it should be easy, but… not so much. I already wrote an article about the version history of the PKZIP software, so now it’s time for one about the version history of the ZIP format.
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