Extracting files from .phar archive
Extending on @pozs’s answer, you can actually use PharData->extractTo in a simple one-liner:
php -r '$phar = new Phar("phar-file.phar"); $phar->extractTo("./directory");'
Yes, this library can do it: https://github.com/koto/phar-util
phar-extract library.phar output-directory