stuffit-rs

A Rust library (stuffit) and CLI tool for reading and writing StuffIt (.sit) archives.

Note: This library targets the classic StuffIt format (.sit) used by StuffIt 1.x through 5.x. The newer StuffIt X format (.sitx, StuffIt 7.0+) is not yet supported.

Disclaimer: This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Smith Micro Software, Allume Systems, or the original StuffIt developers. "StuffIt" is used here as a descriptive term for the file format.

StuffIt was a popular compression format on classic Macintosh systems. This crate provides functionality to parse existing archives and create new ones, with support for the dual-fork file system used by classic Mac OS.

Features

• Parse StuffIt 5.0 archives - Read files compressed with StuffIt 5.x
• Parse SIT! 1.x archives - Support for the original StuffIt format
• Create new archives - Build StuffIt 5.0 compatible archives
• Method 13 compression - LZ77 with Huffman coding (native StuffIt)
• Dual-fork support - Preserve both data and resource forks
• Finder metadata - File types, creator codes, and Finder flags

Supported Compression Methods

Method	Name	Read	Write
0	None (store)	✓	✓
13	LZ77+Huffman	✓	✓
14	Deflate	✓	✓
15	Arsenic/BWT	✓	✗

Library Usage

use stuffit::{SitArchive, SitEntry};

// Parse an existing archive
let data = std::fs::read("archive.sit")?;
let archive = SitArchive::parse(&data)?;

for entry in &archive.entries {
    println!("{}: {} bytes (data), {} bytes (rsrc)",
        entry.name,
        entry.data_fork.len(),
        entry.resource_fork.len()
    );
}

// Create a new archive
let mut archive = SitArchive::new();

let entry = SitEntry {
    name: "hello.txt".to_string(),
    data_fork: b"Hello, World!".to_vec(),
    file_type: *b"TEXT",
    creator: *b"ttxt",
    ..Default::default()
};
archive.add_entry(entry);

// Write uncompressed
let bytes = archive.serialize()?;

// Or write with compression
let compressed = archive.serialize_compressed()?;

CLI Usage

The crate includes a command-line tool (stuffit) for working with StuffIt archives.

List archive contents

# Simple list (just names)
stuffit list archive.sit

# Detailed list with metadata
stuffit list archive.sit --verbose

Extract an archive

stuffit extract archive.sit -o output_dir

Create an archive

# Compressed (default, method 13)
stuffit archive -o output.sit file1.txt folder/

# Uncompressed
stuffit archive -o output.sit file1.txt folder/ -m 0

Options

• -v, --verbose - Show detailed progress or information
• -o, --output - Specify output path
• -m, --method - Compression method (0=none, 13=compressed)

macOS Integration

On macOS, the tool automatically handles:

• Resource forks - Stored in file/..namedfork/rsrc
• Finder metadata - File types, creators, and flags via com.apple.FinderInfo
• Custom folder icons - The Icon\r file and folder flags

Installation

# Install from crates.io
cargo install stuffit

# Or build from source
git clone https://github.com/benletchford/stuffit-rs
cd stuffit-rs
cargo build --release

Building

# Library only
cargo build --no-default-features

# With CLI tool (default)
cargo build

License

Licensed under either of:

• Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

at your option.

References

• The Unarchiver - Reference implementation
• StuffIt File Format - Original documentation