AR(1)							      General Commands 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  ar	utility  creates and maintains groups of files combined 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 first file with a matching name will be selected.

       The normal use of ar is for the creation and maintenance of libraries suitable for use with the loader  (see  ld(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 position, 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  position,  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 speci-
	      fied, ar creates the archive silently.

       -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 position 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  ar-
	      chive.

       -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 sixteen 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 ar(5) for more infor-
	      mation.)

       -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  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, ar gives a file-by-file description of the	archive  modifica-
	      tion.   This description consists of three, white-space separated fields: the option letter, a dash (``-'') and the file name.  When
	      used with the -r option, ar displays the description as above, but the initial letter is an ``a'' if the file is added  to  the  ar-
	      chive 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 contents of the file, pre-
	      ceded by a single newline character, and followed by two newline characters, enclosed in less-than (``<'') and greater-than  (``>'')
	      characters.

	      When  used with the -t option, ar 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 strmode(3)), the decimal user and group  ID's,  separated
	      by  a single slash (``/''), the file size (in bytes), the file modification time (in the date(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 mem-
	      bers 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 modifica-
	      tion 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.

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

ENVIRONMENT

       TMPDIR The pathname of the directory to use when creating temporary files.

FILES

       /tmp	     default temporary file directory

       ar.XXXXXX     temporary file names

COMPATIBILITY

       By  default,  ar 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 ar is backward compatible with previous versions of ar 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 ar(5) for more information.

STANDARDS

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

SEE ALSO

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

7th Edition							  March 21, 1991							     AR(1)