A manifest file in

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

is a file containing

metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

for a group of accompanying files that are part of a set or coherent unit. For example, the files of a computer program may have a manifest describing the name, version number, license and the constituent files of the program. The term is borrowed from a cargo shipping procedure, where a ship manifest would list the crew and/or cargo of a vessel.

Package manifest

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one ...

s rely heavily on

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

s for distributing software. In this scheme, a package is an archive file containing a manifest file. The primary purpose is to enumerate the files which are included in the distribution, either for processing by various packaging tools or for human consumption. Manifests may contain additional information; for example, in JAR (a package format for delivering software written in

Java programming language Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers ''write once, run anywh ...

), they can specify a version number and an

entry point In computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programmin ...

for execution. The manifest may optionally contain a

cryptographic hash A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a hash algorithm (a map of an arbitrary binary string to a binary string with fixed size of n bits) that has special properties desirable for cryptography: * the probability of a particular n-bit output ...

checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...

of each file. By creating a cryptographic signature for such a manifest file, the entire contents of the distribution package can be validated for authenticity and integrity, as altering any of the files will invalidate the checksums in the manifest file.

Application and assembly manifest

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

, software that relies on Windows Side-by-Side ( WinSxS) needs an application manifest, which is an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

document that is either embedded in an executable file or contained in a separate

file that accompanies it. It bears name, version, trust information, privileges required for execution and dependencies on other components. An assembly manifest is very similar to an application manifest but describes the identity of components known as " assemblies". These assemblies are referred to in the application manifest. An example of an application manifest is as follows. This application manifest has two core parts: Security and dependency. The security part says that the application requires "asInvoker" security level; that is, it can be operated at whatever security level it is executed. The dependency part says the application needs a component called "Microsoft.VC90.CRT" with version number "9.0.21022.8".

HTML5 cache manifest

A cache manifest in HTML5 is a

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...

file accompanying a web app that helps it run when there is no network connectivity. The caching mechanism reads this file and ensures that its contents are available locally. An HTML5 cache manifest is served with its content type set to "text/cache-manifest". Example of a cache manifest:

CACHE MANIFEST 
/test.css
/test.js
/test.png

References

{{Reflist Computer file formats Filename extensions