What is WAR? WAR, short name for Web Application Archive, is used as the file extension for Web Application Archive files. .WAR files are ZIP files that can be opened by ZIP tools. See the sample .WAR file included below.

File Extension: .WAR

MIME Type: application/octet-stream

File Content: Web Application Archive

.WAR files are Web Application Archive files saved as binary files. A .WAR file is really a .JAR file, which is also a .ZIP file.

A .WAR file is usually used to distribute a collection of JavaServer Pages, Java Servlets, Java classes, XML files, tag libraries, static Web pages (HTML and related files) and other resources that together constitute a Web application.

Here are the first 128 bytes of a sample .WAR file, derby.war, dumped in HEX values:

50 4b 03 04 0a 00 00 00 00 00 e1 34 84 3e 00 00 PK.........4....
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 00 00 57 45 ..............WE
42 2d 49 4e 46 2f 50 4b 03 04 0a 00 00 00 08 00 B.INF.PK........
e1 34 84 3e 67 62 48 eb e2 04 00 00 49 0b 00 00 .4..gbH.....I...
0f 00 00 00 57 45 42 2d 49 4e 46 2f 77 65 62 2e ....WEB.INF.web.
78 6d 6c a5 56 df 6f db 46 0c 7e 8e ff 0a 4e 2f xml.V.o.F.....N.
6d 01 4b 6a 03 14 eb 36 d7 85 13 3b a8 b7 ce 0e m.Kj...6........
22 77 45 9e 8a b3 44 db d7 4a 77 ea dd a9 8a f7 .wE...D..Jw.....

.WAR Web Application Archive file sample: Click sample.war to download.

.WAR Web Application Archive files can be handled by these software:

• WinZip - Creates and opens .WAR Web Application Archive files.
• WinRAR - Creates and opens .WAR Web Application Archive files.