Welcome to the ZArchiveSharp documentation. This guide covers everything you need to know about using ZArchiveSharp for archive creation, zstd compression, and batch processing.

• Getting Started — Installation, prerequisites, and your first archive
• CLI Reference — Command-line tool usage and options

• ZAR Format — Archive format specification, structure, and design decisions
• Zstd Compression — Compression levels, strategies, and tuning guide
• Seekable Format — Seekable zstd framing (Foot + Head tables)

• API Reference — Complete library API for all public types and methods
• Pipeline — Batch operations, progress reporting, and collision handling

• Benchmarks — Performance characteristics and optimization tips
• FAQ — Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting

• Release Notes — Version history, v1.3.0 highlights, and upgrade notes
• What's New in v1.3.0 — Full notes for the current release

ZArchiveSharp is a pure-C# port of the ZArchive 0.1.2 library. It provides:

1. Archive format — Directory-tree archives with per-block zstd compression (64 KiB blocks)
2. zstd codec — Complete RFC 8878 encoder and decoder (levels 1–22, all 9 strategies)
3. Seekable format — zeekstd-compatible seekable zstd framing
4. Pipeline — Batch pack/extract with progress, pause, cancellation, and collision policies
5. CLI tool — zar command matching zarchive.exe behavior

ZArchiveSharp produces byte-identical output to:

• The original C++ zarchive.exe (ZArchive 0.1.2)
• libzstd 1.5.7 (frozen reference)
• zeekstd (seekable format)

This is verified by 4291 library tests plus 43 CLI battle tests, including parity validation against native tools.