4.4BSD/usr/share/man/cat1/ar.0
AR(1) BSD Reference Manual AR(1)
NNAAMMEE
ar - create and maintain library archives
SSYYNNOOPPSSIISS
aarr --dd [[--TTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --mm [[--TTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --mm [[--aabbiiTTvv]] ppoossiittiioonn aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --pp [[--TTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee [[ffiillee ......]]
aarr --qq [[--ccTTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --rr [[--ccuuTTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --rr [[--aabbcciiuuTTvv]] ppoossiittiioonn aarrcchhiivvee ffiillee ......
aarr --tt [[--TTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee [[ffiillee ......]]
aarr --xx [[--oouuTTvv]] aarrcchhiivvee [[ffiillee ......]]
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
The _a_r utility creates and maintains groups of files com-
bined into an archive. Once an archive has been created,
new files can be added and existing files can be
extracted, deleted, or replaced.
Files are named in the archive by a single component,
i.e., if a file referenced by a path containing a slash
(``/'') is archived it will be named by the last component
of that path. When matching paths listed on the command
line against file names stored in the archive, only the
last component of the path will be compared.
All informational and error messages use the path listed
on the command line, if any was specified; otherwise the
name in the archive is used. If multiple files in the
archive have the same name, and paths are listed on the
command line to ``select'' archive files for an operation,
only the ffiirrsstt file with a matching name will be selected.
The normal use of _a_r is for the creation and maintenance
of libraries suitable for use with the loader (see _l_d(1)),
although it is not restricted to this purpose. The
options are as follows:
-a A positioning modifier used with the options -r and
-m. The files are entered or moved aafftteerr the
archive member _p_o_s_i_t_i_o_n, which must be specified.
-b A positioning modifier used with the options -r and
-m. The files are entered or moved bbeeffoorree the
archive member _p_o_s_i_t_i_o_n, which must be specified.
-c Whenever an archive is created, an informational
message to that effect is written to standard
error. If the -c option is specified, _a_r creates
the archive silently.
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-d Delete the specified archive files.
-i Identical to the -b option.
-m Move the specified archive files within the
archive. If one of the options -a, -b or -i is
specified, the files are moved before or after the
_p_o_s_i_t_i_o_n file in the archive. If none of those
options are specified, the files are moved to the
end of the archive.
-o Set the access and modification times of extracted
files to the modification time of the file when it
was entered into the archive. This will fail if
the user is not the owner of the extracted file or
the super-user.
-p Write the contents of the specified archive files
to the standard output. If no files are specified,
the contents of all the files in the archive are
written in the order they appear in the archive.
-q (Quickly) append the specified files to the
archive. If the archive does not exist a new
archive file is created. Much faster than the -r
option, when creating a large archive piece-by-
piece, as no checking is done to see if the files
already exist in the archive.
-r Replace or add the specified files to the archive.
If the archive does not exist a new archive file is
created. Files that replace existing files do not
change the order of the files within the archive.
New files are appended to the archive unless one of
the options -a, -b or -i is specified.
-T Select and/or name archive members using only the
first fifteen characters of the archive member or
command line file name. The historic archive for-
mat had sixteen bytes for the name, but some his-
toric archiver and loader implementations were
unable to handle names that used the entire space.
This means that file names that are not unique in
their first fifteen characters can subsequently be
confused. A warning message is printed to the
standard error output if any file names are trun-
cated. (See _a_r(5) for more information.)
-t List the specified files in the order in which they
appear in the archive, each on a separate line. If
no files are specified, all files in the archive
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are listed.
-u Update files. When used with the -r option, files
in the archive will be replaced only if the disk
file has a newer modification time than the file in
the archive. When used with the -x option, files
in the archive will be extracted only if the
archive file has a newer modification time than the
file on disk.
-v Provide verbose output. When used with the -d, -m,
-q or -x options, _a_r gives a file-by-file descrip-
tion of the archive modification. This description
consists of three, white-space separated fields:
the option letter, a dash (``-'') and the file
name. When used with the -r option, _a_r displays
the description as above, but the initial letter is
an ``a'' if the file is added to the archive and an
``r'' if the file replaces a file already in the
archive.
When used with the -p option, the name of each
printed file, enclosed in less-than (``<'') and
greater-than (``>'') characters, is written to the
standard output before the contents of the file; it
is preceded by a single newline character, and fol-
lowed by two newline characters.
When used with the -t option, _a_r displays an ``ls
-l'' style listing of information about the members
of the archive. This listing consists of eight,
white-space separated fields: the file permissions
(see _s_t_r_m_o_d_e(3)), the decimal user and group ID's
separated by a single slash (``/''), the file size
(in bytes), the file modification time (in the
_d_a_t_e(1) format ``%b %e %H:%M %Y''), and the name of
the file.
-x Extract the specified archive members into the
files named by the command line arguments. If no
members are specified, all the members of the
archive are extracted into the current directory.
If the file does not exist, it is created; if it
does exist, the owner and group will be unchanged.
The file access and modification times are the time
of the extraction (but see the -o option). The
file permissions will be set to those of the file
when it was entered into the archive; this will
fail if the user is not the owner of the extracted
file or the super-user.
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The _a_r utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error
occurs.
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TMPDIR The pathname of the directory to use when creating
temporary files.
FFIILLEESS
/tmp default temporary file directory
ar.XXXXXX temporary file names
CCOOMMPPAATTIIBBIILLIITTYY
By default, _a_r writes archives that may be incompatible
with historic archives, as the format used for storing
archive members with names longer than fifteen characters
has changed. This implementation of _a_r is backward com-
patible with previous versions of _a_r in that it can read
and write (using the -T option) historic archives. The -T
option is provided for compatibility only, and will be
deleted in a future release. See _a_r(5) for more informa-
tion.
SSTTAANNDDAARRDDSS
The _a_r utility is expected to offer a superset of the
POSIX 1003.2 functionality.
SSEEEE AALLSSOO
ld(1), ranlib(1), strmode(3), ar(5)
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