sharchive: /shar'ki:v/ [UNIX and USENET; from /bin/sh archive] n.

:sharchive: /shar'ki:v/ [UNIX and USENET; from /bin/sh archive]
n. A {flatten}ed representation of a set of one or more files,
with the unique property that it can be unflattened (the original
files restored) by feeding it through a standard UNIX shell; thus,
a sharchive can be distributed to anyone running UNIX, and no
special unpacking software is required. Sharchives are also
intriguing in that they are typically created by shell scripts; the
script that produces sharchives is thus a script which produces
self-unpacking scripts, which may themselves contain scripts. (The
downsides of sharchives are that they are an ideal venue for
{Trojan horse} attacks and that, for recipients not running
UNIX, no simple un-sharchiving program is possible; sharchives can
and do make use of arbitrarily-powerful shell features.)
Sharchives are also commonly referred to as `shar files' after the
name of the most common program for generating them.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary