.PHAR File

The phar file extension is associated with the PHP (Hypertext PreProcessor) server side scripting language version 5.3 and above. PHP is used to create dynamic web pages and Internet applications.

The phar (PHP Extension and Application Repository) file format is used for archiving PHP files in one archive file as well as to distribute PHP applications in one file. Phar archives can use bzip2, or gzip compression file format.

The Phar component that is able to create and extract PHP Phar archives is a part of PHP 5.3 distribution and above.

The phar files are similar to jar files (Java) and can be run using PHP.
An small example of a common PHP application that is distributed as a PHAR archive is PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository).

A phar file extension is used for PHP Extension and Application Repository archive files. Phar file is used to store php files in one data archive, or to distribute PHP applications. To create and extract the Phar archive use Phar component distributed with PHP 5.3 and above.

How to open:

Use Phar component that is a part of PHP version 5.3 and above to extract content of PHP archive file.

How to convert:

As far as we know, this .phar file type can't be converted to any other file format. This is usually the case of system, configuration, temporary, or data files containing data exclusive to only one software and used for its own purposes. Also some proprietary or closed file formats cannot be converted to more common file types in order to protect the intellectual property of the developer, which is for example the case of some DRM-protected multimedia files.