https://github.com/devolutions/lizard

Lizard: A 7-Zip packer that sticks
https://github.com/devolutions/lizard

Last synced: 10 months ago
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Lizard: A 7-Zip packer that sticks

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/devolutions/lizard
• Owner: Devolutions
• License: apache-2.0
• Created: 2018-02-10T14:40:47.000Z (almost 8 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2022-03-10T15:47:48.000Z (almost 4 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-04-09T19:53:13.290Z (10 months ago)
• Language: C
• Homepage:
• Size: 517 KB
• Stars: 4
• Watchers: 16
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE-APACHE
  • Codeowners: .github/CODEOWNERS

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README

          
# Lizard: A 7-Zip packer that sticks

Have you ever wanted to package your application as a single executable

that extracts itself when launched? You have come to the right place.

Traditional packers take an executable, compress its executable segment

and make a new executable that will decompress it in memory when launched.

Lizard aims at simplifying the task of decompressing a 7-Zip archive to

a temporary location from which an executable will be launched.

This project was originally created with a specific use case in mind:

creating an executable that contains both 32-bit and 64-bit versions

of a Windows executable. When launched, the packer detects if it is

running inside a 32-bit or 64-bit Windows environment, and proceeds

to extract and launch the optimal version of the program. Since both

executables are just different versions of the same program, their

resource segments are identical. Because they are compressed inside

the same 7-Zip archive rather than individually, the resource segment

is correctly compressed only once, resulting in efficient compression.

Lizard does not provide specific tooling to generate packed executables.

It is a library that contains a 7-Zip decompressor (LZMA SDK), along with

portability functions to deal with environment detection, files, paths,

Unicode encoding, etc. Embedding the 7-Zip archive inside the packer

program can be done using platform-specific resource compilers.

Otherwise, the [YARC](https://github.com/wayk/yarc) resource compiler can be used to achieve this task.

## Sample Program Usage

`lizard [options]`

Options:

 * `-e`                extract files from archive

 * `-l`                list files from archive

 * `-i`          input file

 * `-o`          output path

 * `-h`                print help

 * `-v`                print version (1.0.0)

 * `-V`                verbose mode