Extract, convert, and compress archives

Open a ZIP, 7z, RAR, tar, or single compressed file from the terminal, get what you need out of it, and repackage it as ZIP or 7z. To patch a ROM that is inside an archive, no extraction is needed in either front end: add the archive as the input and rom-weaver looks inside, as covered in Apply a ROM patch and Apply patches from the CLI.

Extract an archive

rom-weaver extract --input patches.7z --output extracted-patches

Gzip, Bzip2, XZ, and Zstandard inputs are single compressed streams, so they extract to their one payload file rather than a directory.

Convert one archive format to another

There is no single convert command. Extract, then compress the directory:

rom-weaver extract --input patches.7z --output extracted-patches
rom-weaver compress --input extracted-patches --output patches.zip

The new ZIP contains extracted-patches/ as its top-level directory, because compress archives the paths you give it. It does not unpack an archive input on your behalf: pass patches.7z directly and the new archive will contain the patches.7z file itself.

Create a ZIP or 7z

rom-weaver compress --input my-release --output my-release.zip

ZIP accepts store, deflate, or zstd; 7z uses LZMA2. Pass --codec to choose, or leave it out for the default. In the browser, the same settings appear in the output card when the input supports them.

Those two are the only general-purpose archive formats rom-weaver can create. ZIPX, RAR, TAR and its variants, Gzip, Bzip2, XZ, and Zstandard can be opened but not written, so converting into one of them is not possible - extract and use a different container.

Compress a ROM or disc image instead

An archive is not the same thing as a compressed disc image. If your goal is a smaller file your emulator still boots directly, you probably want CHD, RVZ, Z3DS, or a trim rather than a ZIP:

rom-weaver compress --input disc.cue --output disc.chd

See Choosing a compression format for which container fits which platform and when trimming beats compressing.

Look up what is supported

Supported formats is the authoritative table: every container, its aliases and extensions, whether rom-weaver can probe, extract, or create it, and the --codec values each output accepts. It covers the specialized disc and ROM containers this page leaves out.