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pax(1) General Commands Manual pax(1)

NAME
pax - extracts, writes, and lists archive files; copies files and directory hierarchies

SYNOPSIS
Listing Member Files of Archived Files
archive] options]... replstr]... [pattern]...

Extracting Archive Files
archive] options]... string]... replstr]... [pattern]...

Writing Archive Files
blocking] archive] options]... replstr]... format] [file]...

Copying Files
options]... string]... replstr]... [file]... directory

DESCRIPTION
The command extracts and writes member files of archive files; writes lists of the member files of archives; and copies directory hierar-
chies. The and flags specify the archive operation performed by the command.

The pattern argument specifies a pattern that matches one or more paths of archive members. A (backslash) character is not recognized in
the pattern argument and it prevents the subsequent character from having any special meaning. If no pattern argument is specified, all
members are selected in the archive.

If a pattern argument is specified, but no archive members are found that match the pattern specified, the command detects the error, exits
with a nonzero exit status, and writes a diagnostic message.

The command can read both and archives. In the case of this means that can read ASCII archives (which are created with and binary archives
(which are created without the flag).

can also write archives that and can read; by default, writes archives in the extended interchange format. also writes ASCII archives; use
the flag to specify this extended output format.

also reads and writes archives in the interchange format, IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition. Use the flag to specify this format. Refer to the
description of the option for more details.

The supported archive formats are automatically detected on input. All three formats are explained in greater detail under

The four combinations of and are referred to as the four modes of operation: and modes, corresponding respectively to the four forms shown
in the section.

In mode (when neither nor are specified), shall write the names of the members of the archive file read from the standard input, with
pathnames matching the specified patterns, to standard output. If a named file is of type directory, the file hierarchy rooted at
that file shall be listed as well.

In mode (when is specified, but is not), shall extract the members of the archive file read from the standard input, with pathnames
matching the specified patterns. If an extracted file is of type directory, the file hierarchy rooted at that file shall be
extracted as well. The extracted files shall be created performing pathname resolution with the directory in which was invoked as
the current working directory.

If an attempt is made to extract a directory when the directory already exists, this shall not be considered an error. If an
attempt is made to extract a FIFO when the FIFO already exists, this shall not be considered an error.

In mode (when is specified, but is not), shall write the contents of the file operands to the standard output in an archive format. If
no file operands are specified, a list of files to copy, one per line, shall be read from the standard input. A file of type direc-
tory shall include all of the files in the file hierarchy rooted at the file.

In mode (when both and are specified), shall copy the file operands to the destination directory.

If no file operands are specified, a list of files to copy, one per line, shall be read from the standard input. A file of type
directory shall include all of the files in the file hierarchy rooted at the file.

The effect of the copy shall be as if the copied files were written to an archive file and then subsequently extracted, except that
there may be hard links between the original and the copied files. If the destination directory is a subdirectory of one of the
files to be copied, the results are unspecified. It shall be an error for the file named by the directory operand not to exist, not
be writable by the user, or not be a file of type directory.

In or modes, if intermediate directories are necessary to extract an archive member, shall perform actions equivalent to the function
defined in the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, called with the following arguments:

1. The intermediate directory used as the path argument,

2. The value of the bitwise-inclusive OR of and as the mode argument.

If the selected archive format supports the specification of linked files, it shall be an error if these files cannot be linked when the
archive is extracted, except that if the files to be linked are symbolic links then separate copies of the symbolic link shall be created
instead. For archive formats that do not store file contents with each name that causes a hard link, if the file that contains the data is
not extracted during this session, a diagnostic message shall be displayed with the name of a file that can be used to extract the data.

Options
Appends files to the end of the archive.
Certain devices might not support appending.

Backs up and extracts optional entries of access control lists for files.
This option is applicable only for the format. The default behaviour is not to back up or extract the optional ACL entries.
The PAX-ENH product must be installed to enable this option. If a login name cannot be found in the password file of the
extracting machine, the file is extracted without its ACL and a warning message is printed. Hence, it might be required to
extract the password file before attempting to extract ACLs.

Specifies the block size for output to be the positive decimal integer of bytes
specified by the blocking argument. The block size value cannot exceed 32,256. Blocking is automatically determined on
input.

Do not specify a value for the blocking argument larger than 32768. Default blocking when creating archives depends on the
archive format. (See the flag description.)

Matches all file or archive members except those specified
by the pattern or file arguments.

Causes directories being copied or archived, or archived
directories being extracted, to match only the directory or archived directory itself and not the contents of the directory
or archived directory.

Specifies the path of an archive file to be used instead of standard input (when the
flag is not specified) or the standard output (when the flag is specified but the flag is not). When specified with the
flag, any files written to the archive are appended to the end of the archive.

If a symbolic link referencing a file of type directory is specified
on the command line, shall archive the file hierarchy rooted in the file referenced by the link, using the name of the link
as the root of the file hierarchy. Otherwise, if a symbolic link referencing a file of any other file type which can nor-
mally archive is specified on the command line, then shall archive the file referenced by the link, using the name of the
link. The default behavior shall be to archive the symbolic link itself.

Renames files or archives interactively. For each
archive member that matches the pattern argument or file that matches a file argument, a prompt is written to the terminal
that contains the name of a file or archive member. A line is then read from the terminal. If this line is empty, the file
or archive member is skipped. If this line consists of a dot, the file or archive member is processed with no modification
to its name. Otherwise, its name is replaced with the contents of the line. The command immediately exits with a nonzero
exit status if an End-of-File is encountered when reading a response or if it cannot read or write to the terminal.

Prevents the command from writing over existing files.

Links files when copying files.
When both and are specified, hard links are established between the source and destination file hierarchies whenever possi-
ble.

If a symbolic link referencing a file of type directory is specified on
the command line or encountered during the traversal of a file hierarchy, shall archive the file hierarchy rooted in the
file referenced by the link, using the name of the link as the root of the file hierarchy. Otherwise, if a symbolic link
referencing a file of any other file type which can normally archive is specified on the command line or encountered during
the traversal of a file hierarchy, shall archive the file referenced by the link, using the name of the link. The default
behavior shall be to archive the symbolic link itself.

Selects the first archive member that matches each
pattern argument. No more than one archive member is matched for each pattern (although members of type directory will
still match the file hierarchy rooted at that file).

Provides information to the implementation to modify the algorithm for
extracting or writing files. The value of options shall consist of one or more comma-separated keywords of the form:

Some keywords apply only to certain file formats, as indicated with each description. Use of keywords that are inapplicable
to the file format being processed causes to print an error message and ignore the keyword. However will continue processing
the archive. Keywords in the options argument shall be a string that would be a valid portable filename as described in the
Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 3.276, Portable Filename Character Set.

Note: Keywords are not expected to be filenames, merely to follow the same character composition rules as portable file-
names.

The value field shall consist of zero or more characters; within value, the application shall precede any literal comma with
a backslash, which shall be ignored, but preserves the comma as part of value. A comma as the final character, or a comma
followed solely by white space as the final characters, in options shall be ignored. Multiple options can be specified; if
keywords given to these multiple options conflict, the keywords and values appearing later in command line sequence shall
take precedence and the earlier shall be silently ignored. Also, if the value specified for a keyword is invalid, shall
print a suitable error message and behave as if the keyword were not specified in the command line. The following keyword
values of options shall be supported for the file formats as indicated:

(Applicable only to the
format.) When used in or mode, shall omit from extended header records that it produces any keywords matching the
string pattern. When used in or mode, shall ignore any keywords matching the string pattern in the extended header
records. In both cases, matching shall be performed using the pattern matching notation described in and For example,
the following pattern:

would suppress user and group name keywords in the extended header.

See for extended header record keyword usage. When multiple options are specified, the patterns shall be additive;
all keywords matching the specified string patterns shall be omitted from extended header records that pax produces.

(Applicable only to the
format.) path specifies a file or a directory to be excluded from the tree being backed up or extracted. The path
specified must be a part of the tree. Otherwise, the specified path will be ignored. The PAX-ENH product must be
installed to enable this option.

(Applicable only to the
format.) This keyword allows user control over the name that is written into the header blocks for the extended
header produced under the circumstances described in The name shall be the contents of string, after the following
character substitutions have been made:

The directory name of the file, equivalent to the result of the dirname utility on the
translated pathname.

The filename of the file, equivalent to the result of the basename utility on the
translated pathname.

The process ID of the pax process.

A '%' character.

If there are any other '%' characters in or if no is specified, shall use the following default value:

(Applicable only to the
format.) This keyword allows user control over the name that is written into the header blocks for global extended
header records. The name shall be the contents of string, after the following character substitutions have been made:

An integer that represents the sequence number of the global extended header record
in the archive, starting at 1.

The process ID of the pax process.

A '%' character.

If there are any other '%' characters in or if no is specified, shall use the following default value:

where represents the value of the environment variable. If is not set, shall use

(Applicable only to the
format.) graph_file defines the graph file. The graph file is a text file containing the list of file names of
trees to be included or excluded from the backup graph. Graph file entries consist of a line beginning with either
(include) or (exclude), followed by white space, and then the path name of a tree. Lines not beginning with or are
treated as an error. There is no default graph file. For example, to back up all of except for the subtree a file
could be created with the following two records:

The PAX-ENH product must be installed to enable this option.

(Applicable only to the
format.) This keyword allows user control over the action takes upon encountering values in an extended header record
that, in or mode, are invalid in the destination hierarchy. The following are invalid values that shall be recognized
by In or mode, a filename or link name that is longer than the maximum allowed in the destination hierarchy.

The following mutually-exclusive values of the action argument are supported:

In or mode, shall bypass the file, causing no change to the destination hierarchy.

In or mode, shall act as if the option were in effect for each file with invalid filename or link name values,
allowing the user to provide a replacement name interactively.

In or mode, shall write the file, translating the name regardless of whether this may overwrite an existing file
with a valid name. This action argument is not supported for files having invalid link names.

If no option is specified, shall act as if was specified. Any overwriting of existing files that may be allowed by
the actions shall be subject to permission and modification time restrictions, and shall be suppressed if the option
is also specified.

(Applicable only to the
format.) In mode, shall write the contents of a file to the archive even when that file is merely a hard link to a
file whose contents have already been written to the archive.

This keyword specifies the output format of the table of contents produced when the
option is specified in mode. See To avoid ambiguity, the format shall be the only or final value pair in a option-
argument; all characters in the remainder of the option-argument shall be considered part of the format string. When
multiple options are specified, the format strings shall be considered a single, concatenated string, evaluated in
command line order.

(Applicable only to the
format.) When used in or mode, shall include and extended header records for each file. See

In addition to these keywords, if the format is specified, any of the keywords and values defined in can be used in option-
arguments, in either of two modes:

When used in
or mode, these keyword/value pairs shall be included at the beginning of the archive as global extended header
records. When used in or mode, these keyword/value pairs shall act as if they had been at the beginning of the ar-
chive as global extended header records.

When used in
or mode, these keyword/value pairs shall be included as records at the beginning of a extended header for each file.
(This shall be equivalent to the equal-sign form except that it creates no global extended header records.) When used
in or mode, these keyword/value pairs shall act as if they were included as records at the end of each extended
header; thus, they shall override any global or file-specific extended header record keywords of the same names. For
example, in the command below, the group name will be forced to a new value for all files read from the archive:

The precedence of keywords over various fields in the archive is described in

Specifies one or more file characteristics
to be retained or discarded on extraction. The string argument consists of the characters and Multiple characteristics can
be concatenated within the same string and multiple flags can be specified. The specification flags have the following mean-
ings:

Does not retain file-access times.

Retains the user ID, group ID, access permission, access
time, and modification time.

Does not retain file-modification times.

Retains the user ID and the group ID.

Retains the access permission.

Note that "retain" means that an attribute stored in the archive is given to the extracted file, subject to the permissions
of the invoking process; otherwise, the attribute is determined as part of the normal file creation action.

If neither the nor the flag is specified, or the user ID and group ID are not retained, the command does not set the and
bits of the access permission. If the retention of any of these items fails, the command writes a diagnostic message to
standard error. Failure to retain any of the items affects the exit status, but does not cause the extracted file to be
deleted. If specification flags are duplicated or conflict with each other, the ones given last shall take precedence. For
example, if is specified, file-modification times are retained.

Reads an archive file from the standard input.

Modifies file-member or
archive-member names specified by the pattern or file arguments according to the substitution expression replstr, using the
syntax of the command. The substitution expression has the following format:

whereas in the command, old is a basic regular expression and new can contain an (ampersand), (n is a digit) back refer-
ences, or subexpression matching. The old string can also contain newline characters.

Any non-null character can be used as a delimiter (the (slash) character is the delimiter in the previous format). Multiple
flag expressions can be specified; the expressions are applied in the order specified, terminating with the first successful
substitution. The optional trailing character performs as in the command. The optional trailing character causes successful
substitutions to be written to the standard error. File-member or archive-member names that substitute to the empty string
are ignored when reading and writing archives.

Causes the access times of the archived files to be
the same as they were before being read by the command.

Ignores files that are older (having a less recent file modification
time) than a preexisting file or archive member with the same name.

When extracting files (flag), an archive member with the same name as a file in the file system is extracted if the archive
member is newer than the file.

When writing files to an archive file (flag), an archive member with the same name as a file in the file system is super-
seded if the file is newer than the archive member.

When copying files to a destination directory (flags), the file in the destination hierarchy is replaced by the file in the
source hierarchy or by a link to the file in the source hierarchy if the file in the source hierarchy is newer.

Writes information about the process. If neither the
or flags are specified, the flag produces a verbose table of contents that resembles the output of otherwise, archive-member
pathnames are written to standard error.

Writes files to the standard output in the specified archive format.

Specifies the output archive format. The
command recognizes the following formats:

Extended
interchange format. The default blocking value for this format for character special archive files is 5120. Blocking
values from 512 to 32,256 in increments of 512 are supported.

The interchange format. See IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition. The default block size for this format for character special
archive files shall be 5120. Blocking values from 512 to 32,256 in increments of 512 are supported.

This is an extended format. The format should be used for archiving and extracting files having one or more of the
following properties: size 8GB or more, UID or GID greater than 2097151, user or group names longer than 31 charac-
ters, pathname longer than 256 characters or link name longer than 100 characters. Archives of this format are
reported as "USTAR format archive extended" in the and mode when the (verbose) flag is specified in the command
line.

Extended
interchange format. This is the default output archive format. The default blocking value for this format for
character special archive files is 10240. Blocking values from 512 to 32,256 in increments of 512 are supported.

Any attempt to append to an archive file in a format different from the existing archive format causes the command to exit
immediately with a nonzero exit status.

When traversing the file hierarchy specified by a pathname, the
command does not descend into directories that have a different device ID.

Prompts interactively for the disposition of each
file. Substitutions specified by flags are performed before you are prompted for disposition. An EOF marker or an input
line starting with the character causes to exit. Otherwise, an input line starting with anything other than causes the file
to be ignored. This flag cannot be used in conjunction with the flag.

Option Interaction and Processing Order
Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options and shall not be considered an error and the last option specified shall deter-
mine the behavior of the utility.

The flags that operate on the names of files or archive members and interact as follows.

When extracting files flag), archive members are selected, using the modified names, according to the user-specified pattern arguments as
modified by the and flags. Then, any and flags modify, in that order, the names of the selected files. The flag writes the names resulting
from these modifications.

When writing files to an archive file flag), or when copying files, the files are selected according to the user-specified pathnames as
modified by the and flags. Then, any and flags modify, in that order, the names resulting from these modifications. The flag writes the
names resulting from these modifications.

If both the and flags are specified, the command does not consider a file selected unless it is newer than the file to which it is com-
pared.

Listing Member Files of Archived Files
You can specify the command without the or flags with the or and flags, and with the pattern argument.

If neither the or flags are included, lists the contents of the specified archive, one file per line.

If the flag is specified, the listing is output in the command format. In the verbose listing lists hard link pathnames as follows:

lists symbolic link pathnames as follows:

In the case of hard links, pathname is the name of the file that is being extracted, and linkname is the name of a file that appeared ear-
lier in the archive.

Extracting Archive Files
The flag can be specified with the or and flags, and a pattern argument.

Writing Archive Files
The flag can be specified with the or and flags and with file arguments.

If is specified, but no files are specified, standard input is used. If neither or are specified, standard input must be an archive file.

Copying Files
The and flags can be specified with the or and flags and with the file arguments. A directory argument must be specified.

List Mode Format Specifications
In mode with the format option, the format argument shall be applied for each selected file. The utility shall append a newline to the out-
put for each selected file. The format argument shall be used as the format string described in the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std
1003.1-2001, Chapter 5, File Format Notation, with the exceptions 1. through 5. defined in the section of plus the following exceptions:

1. through 5. Defined in the section of

6. The sequence can occur before a format conversion specifier. The conversion argument is defined by the value of keyword. The imple-
mentation shall support the following keywords:

o Any of the Field Name entries in Header Block and Octet-Oriented Archive Entry.

o Any keyword defined for the extended header in

For example, the sequence "%(charset)s" is the string value of the name of the character set in the extended header. Refer to the
section for the list of keywords in each format.

The result of the keyword conversion argument shall be the value from the applicable header field or extended header, without any
trailing NULL characters.

7. An additional conversion specifier character, shall be used to specify time formats. The conversion specifier character can be pre-
ceded by the sequence where subformat is a date format as defined by date operands. The default keyword shall be and the default sub-
format shall be:

8. An additional conversion specifier character, shall be used to specify the file mode string as defined in Standard Output. If is omit-
ted, the mode keyword shall be used. For example, writes the single character corresponding to the entry_type field of the command

9. An additional conversion specifier character, shall be used to specify the device for block or special files, if applicable. If not
applicable, and is specified, then this conversion shall be equivalent to If not applicable, and is omitted, then this conversion shall
be equivalent to space.

10. An additional conversion specifier character, shall be used to specify a pathname. The conversion character can be preceded by a
sequence of comma-separated keywords:

The values for all the keywords that are non-null shall be concatenated together, each separated by a '/'. The default shall be if the
keyword path is defined; otherwise, the default shall be

11. An additional conversion specifier character, shall be used to specify a symbolic line expansion. If the current file is a symbolic
link, then %L shall expand to:

Otherwise, the conversion specification shall be the equivalent of

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
cpio Interchange Format
The octet-oriented archive format shall be a series of entries, each comprising a header that describes the file, the name of the file, and
then the contents of the file. The fields of the header are described below:

Identify the archive as being a transportable archive by containing the
identifying value "070707".

Contains values that uniquely identify the file within the archive. No
files contain the same pair of and values unless they are links to the same file.

Contains the file type and access permissions.

Contains the user ID of the owner of the file.

Contains the group ID of the group owner of the file.

Contains the number links of the file.

Contains information for character or block special files.

Contains the latest time of modification of the file at the time the archive
was created.

Contains the length of the pathname, including the terminating NULL character.

Contains the length of the file in bytes. This shall be the length of the
data section following the header structure.

ustar Interchange Format
A archive tape or file shall contain a series of logical records. Each logical record shall be a fixed-size logical record of 512 bytes.
Each file archived shall be represented by a header logical record that describes the file, followed by zero or more logical records that
give the contents of the file. At the end of the archive file there shall be two 512-octet logical records filled with binary zeros, inter-
preted as an end-of-archive indicator. The header logical record shall contain the following fields:

The name and the prefix fields shall produce the pathname of the file. A new
pathname shall be formed, if prefix is not an empty string (its first character is not NULL), by concatenating prefix (up to
the first NULL character), a slash character, and name; otherwise, name is used alone. In this manner, pathnames up to 256
characters can be supported. If a pathname does not fit in the space provided, shall notify the user of the error, and shall
not store any part of the file-header or data on the medium.

The mode field provides 12 bits encoded in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard octal
digit representation to encode the permissions.

The user and group ID of the owner and group of the
file, respectively. If or is greater than 2097151, a value of -1 will be stored in the respective field of the header. If the
corresponding name (user name for uid and group name for gid) also could not be stored in the archive, shall notify the user of
the error but shall include the other attributes of the file and its data on the medium.

The names of the owner and group of the file, respectively. If the user or group
name is longer than 31 characters, it will not be stored in the respective field of the header. shall notify the user of the
error but shall include the other attributes of the file and its data on the medium.

The size of the file in bytes. If the size of the files is greater than or equal to
8GB, shall notify the user of the error, and shall not store any part of the file-header or data on the medium.

The modification time of the file at the time it was archived.

Specifies the type of file archived. All of the
fields shall be coded in the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard IRV

Represents a regular file.

Represents a file linked to another file, of any type, previously archived. The
linked-to name is specified in the field with a NULL-character terminator if it is less than 100 bytes in length.

Represents a symbolic link. The contents of the symbolic link shall be stored
in the field.

Represents character special files and block special files respectively.

Specifies a directory or subdirectory.

Specifies a FIFO special file. Note that the archiving of a FIFO file archives
the existence of this file and not its contents.

The is the pathname of the target of a symbolic or hard link. It is limited to 100 characters. If the name does not fit in the
space provided, shall notify the user of the error, and shall not attempt to store the link on the medium.

When the field contains '3' or '4' the and fields shall contain the major and minor numbers of the device respectively.

The octal value of the simple sum of all bytes in the header logical record.
Each bytes in the header shall be treated as an unsigned value. When calculating the checksum, the field is treated as if it
were all spaces.

The magic field is the specification that this archive was output in this archive
format. If this field contains (the five characters from the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard IRV shown followed by NULL), the uname
and gname fields shall contain the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard IRV representation of the owner and group of the file, respec-
tively. When the file is restored by a privileged, protection-preserving version of the utility, the user and group databases
shall be scanned for these names. If found, the user and group IDs contained within these files shall be used rather than the
values contained within the uid and gid fields.

The version field is two bytes containing the characters "00" (zero-zero).

pax Interchange Format
A archive tape or file produced in the format shall contain a series of blocks. The physical layout of the archive shall be identical to
the ustar format described in Each file archived shall be represented by the following sequence:

1. An optional header block with extended header records. This header is of the form described in with a value of or The extended header
records, described in shall be included as the data for this header block.

2. A header block that describes the file. Any fields in the preceding optional extended header shall override the associated fields in
this header block for this file.

3. Zero or more blocks that contain the contents of the file.

At the end of the archive file there shall be two 512-byte blocks filled with binary zeros, interpreted as an end-of-archive indicator.

pax Header Block
The header block shall be identical to the header block described in except that two additional typeflag values are defined:

Represents extended header records for the following file in the archive (which
shall have its own header block). The format of these extended header records shall be as described in the section of this man-
page.

Represents global extended header records for the following files in the archive.
The format of these extended header records shall be as described in Each value shall affect all subsequent files that do not
override that value in their own extended header record and until another global extended header record is reached that pro-
vides another value for the same field. The global headers should not be used with interchange media that could suffer partial
data loss in transporting the archive.

For both of these types, the size field shall be the size of the extended header records in bytes. The other fields in the header block are
not meaningful to this version of the pax utility.

A further difference from the header block is that data blocks for files of typeflag 1 (the digit one) (hard link) may be included, which
means that the size field may be greater than zero. Archives created by shall include these data blocks with the hard links.

pax Extended Header
A extended header contains values that are inappropriate for the header block because of limitations in that format: fields representing
file attributes not described in the header, and fields whose format or length do not fit the requirements of the header. The values in an
extended header add attributes to the following file (or files; see the description of the header block) or override values in the follow-
ing header block(s), as indicated in the following list of keywords.

An extended header shall consist of one or more records, each constructed as follows:

The keyword field shall be one of the entries from the following list. A keyword shall not include an equals sign. In the following list,
the notations "file(s)" or "block(s)" are used to acknowledge that a keyword affects the following single file after a extended header, but
possibly multiple files after Any requirements in the list for to include a record when in or mode shall apply only when such a record has
not already been provided through the use of the option. When used in mode, shall behave as if an archive had been created with applicable
extended header records and then extracted.

The file access time for the following file(s), equivalent to the value of the
member of the structure for a file, as described by the function. The format of the value shall be as described in

A series of characters used as a comment. All characters in the
value
field shall be ignored by

The group ID of the group that owns the file, expressed as a decimal number
using digits from the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard. This record shall override the field in the following header block(s). When
used in or mode, shall include a extended header record for each file whose group ID is greater than 2097151 (octal 7777777).

The group of the file(s), formatted as a group name in the group database.
This record shall override the and fields in the following header block(s), and any extended header record. When used in or
mode, shall include a extended header record for each file whose group name cannot be represented in the header.

The pathname of a link being created to another file, of any type, previously
archived. This record shall override the field in the following header block(s). The following header block shall determine the
type of link created. If typeflag of the following header block is 1, it shall be a hard link. If typeflag is 2, it shall be a
symbolic link and the value shall be the contents of the symbolic link. When used in or mode, shall include a extended header
record for each link whose pathname cannot be represented in the header.

The file modification time of the following file(s), equivalent to the value of
the member of the structure for a file, as described in the function. This record shall override the field in the following
header block(s). The modification time shall be restored if the process has the appropriate privilege required to do so. The
format of the value is described in

The pathname of the following file(s). This record shall override the
and fields in the following header block(s). When used in or mode, pax shall include a extended header record for each file
whose pathname cannot be represented entirely in the header.

The size of the file in bytes, expressed as a decimal number using digits
from the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard. This record shall override the field in the following header block(s). When used in or
mode, shall include a extended header record for each file with a size value greater than 8589934591 (octal 77777777777).

The user ID of the file owner, expressed as a decimal number using digits
from the ISO/IEC 646:1991 standard. This record shall override the field in the following header block(s). When used in or
mode, shall include a extended header record for each file whose owner ID is greater than 2097151 (octal 7777777).

The owner of the following file(s), formatted as a user name in the user
database. This record shall override the and fields in the following header block(s), and any extended header record. When used
in or mode, shall include a extended header record for each file whose user name cannot be represented entirely in the header.

Indicates that the optional ACL entry for the file has been backed up for HFS
files and its value will be equal to 1. This record is written to the extended header if option is specified while creating
the archive, the HFS file has optional ACL entries and the ACL entries are good.

Indicates that the optional ACL entry for the file has been backed up for JFS
files and its value will be equal to 1. This record is written to the extended header if option is specified while creating
the archive, the JFS file has optional ACL entries and the ACL entries are good.

The number of ACL entries that have been written to the extended header.
This is common to both HFS and JFS. This record is written to the extended header if option is specified while creating the
archive, the JFS file has optional ACL entries and the ACL entries are good.

The ACL entries for the file.
This record is written to the extended header if option is specified while creating the archive, the file has optional ACL
entries and the ACL entries are good. The format for HFS ACL entries will be:

The format for JFS ACL entries will be:

However, the corresponding username/groupname of the uid/gid are written to the header.

If the value field is zero length, it shall delete any header block field, previously entered extended header value, or global extended
header value of the same name.

If a keyword in an extended header record (or in a option-argument) overrides or deletes a corresponding field in the header block, shall
ignore the contents of that header block field.

Unlike the header block fields, NULLs shall not delimit values; all characters within the value field shall be considered data for the
field. None of the length limitations of the header block fields in shall apply to the extended header records.

pax Extended Header Keyword Precedence
This section describes the precedence in which the various header records and fields and command line options are selected to apply to a
file in the archive. When is used in or modes, it shall determine a file attribute in the following sequence:

1. If keyword-prefix is used, the affected attributes shall be determined from Step 7., if applicable, or ignored otherwise.

2. If is used, the affected attributes shall be ignored.

3. If is used, the affected attribute shall be assigned the value.

4. If there is a extended header record, the affected attribute shall be assigned the value. When extended header records conflict, the
last one given in the header shall take precedence.

5. If is used, the affected attribute shall be assigned the value.

6. If there is a global extended header record, the affected attribute shall be assigned the value. When global extended header records
conflict, the last one given in the global header shall take precedence.

7. Otherwise, the attribute shall be determined from the header block.

pax Extended Header File Times
The utility shall write an record for each file in or modes if the file's modification time cannot be represented exactly in the header
logical record described in This can occur if the time is out of range, or if the file system of the underlying implementation supports
non-integer time granularities and the time is not an integer. All of these time records shall be formatted as a decimal representation of
the time in seconds since the Epoch. If a period decimal point character is present, the digits to the right of the point shall represent
the units of a sub second timing granularity, where the first digit is tenths of a second and each subsequent digit is a tenth of the pre-
vious digit.

RETURN VALUE
The command returns a value of 0 (zero) if all files were successfully processed; otherwise, returns a value greater than 0 (zero).

EXAMPLES
To copy the contents of the current directory to the tape drive, enter:

To copy the directory hierarchy to enter:

To read the archive with all files rooted in the directory in the archive extracted relative to the current directory, enter:

All of the preceding examples create archives in format.

The following pairs of commands demonstrate conversions from and to In all cases, the examples show comparable command-line usage rather
than identical output formats. The flag can be specified to the commands shown here, producing archives to select specific output formats:

Note: When you use the flag (interactively renames files) on files to which there are hard links, does create hard links to the renamed
files.

WARNINGS
Because of industry standards and interoperability goals, does not support the archival of files of size 8GB or larger for both and for-
mats. Also, does not support user and group IDs greater than or equal to 2048K for format. does not support and user and group IDs greater
than or equal to 256K for format. With format, files with user IDs greater than or equal to 2048K are restored under the user ID of the
current process, unless the user name exists. The same applies for group IDs. In format, files with user or group IDs greater than or
equal to 256K will not be recovered with the original user or group IDs respectively.

AUTHOR
was developed by Mark H. Colburn, OSF, and HP.

hpux man page for pax