


AR(1)               UNIX Programmer's Manual                AR(1)



NAME
     ar - create and maintain library archives

SYNOPSIS
     ar -d [-Tv] archive file ...
     ar -m [-Tv] archive file ...
     ar -m [-abiTv] position archive file ...
     ar -p [-Tv] archive [file ...]
     ar -q [-cTv] archive file ...
     ar -r [-cuTv] archive file ...
     ar -r [-abciuTv] position archive file ...
     ar -t [-Tv] archive [file ...]
     ar -x [-ouTv] archive [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     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 com-
     ponent 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 first
     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 after 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 before the archive
          member _p_o_s_i_t_i_o_n, which must be specified.

     -c   Whenever an archive is created, an informational mes-
          sage 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 are 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 format had six-
          teen bytes for the name, but some historic 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
          truncated.  (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 are
          listed.

     -u   Update files.  When used with the -r option, files in
          the archive will be replaced only if the disk file has



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AR(1)               UNIX Programmer's Manual                AR(1)



          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 description 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 is written to the standard output before the con-
          tents of the file, preceded by a single newline charac-
          ter, and followed by two newline characters, enclosed
          in less-than (``<'') and greater-than (``>'') charac-
          ters.

          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 permis-
          sions 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.

     The _a_r utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error
     occurs.

ENVIRONMENT
     TMPDIR
          The pathname of the directory to use when creating tem-
          porary files.




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AR(1)               UNIX Programmer's Manual                AR(1)



FILES
     /tmp          default temporary file directory

     ar.XXXXXX     temporary file names

COMPATIBILITY
     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 compatible
     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 information.

STANDARDS
     The _a_r utility is expected to offer a superset of the POSIX
     1003.2 functionality.

SEE ALSO
     ld(1), ranlib(1), strmode(3), ar(5)


































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