SWG

Revision as of 11:51, 7 October 2023

SWG (SWAG packet) is a specialized archive format associated with the SourceWare Archival Group (SWAG). SWAG is a historical collection of Pascal source code.

There are at least two different SWG formats, which we'll call "old" and "new".

Format details

New SWG format is a derivative of LHA format, apparently based on LHA header level 0, with an extra 165 bytes worth of headers preceding the filename field. It has a custom "-sw1-" compression method, the details of which are apparently undocumented.

Some of the SWAG files require further decoding, particularly by the included XX34 utility. Also included is the BXP utility, but no evidence found that it was ever used.

Identification

New format: At offset 2 is ASCII "-sw1-" (if the first member file was compressible), or "-sw0-" (if not).

At least some old format files start with "SWAGOLX.EXE".

Specifications

• SWAG.ZIP → SWAGADD.DOC - Has partial documentation of new format.
  • swg.txt - Excerpt from SWAGADD.DOC

Software

• [1] → SWAG.ZIP - GDSOFT SWAG Packet Reader v3.13 (DOS software)
  • Note that the Reader is also included in the ALLSWAGS.ZIP file.
• [2] → SWAGWIN.ZIP - SWAG for WINDOWS, v1.04
• SWAG.ZIP - Maybe the first version (DOS software)
• Deark (For analysis, maybe. Does not decompress the format.)

Sample files

• GARBO Shareware Archive → allswags.zip
• [3] → ALLSWAGS.ZIP
• SWAGABC.ZIP - Old format
• https://telparia.com/fileFormatSamples/archive/swagPacket/

Links

• The HTML SWAG Home Page - The contents of SWAG are available here, but maybe not in SWG format.