Gitiles
Code Review Sign In
gerrit-public.fairphone.software / platform / external / python / cpython2 / c499572a9871d4c7298e25b47d6b51a656cdcf94 / . / BeOS / ar-1.1 / docs / ar.html
blob: 50f002e399a40376c4f9f77488f165c3c4aa3a1e [file] [log] [blame]
Guido van Rossumd8eb2111998-08-04 17:57:28 +0000[diff] [blame]1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML3.2//EN">
2<!-- $Id$ -->
3<html> <head>
4<title>ar - create and maintain library archives</title>
5</head>
6
7<body bgcolor="#ffffcb">
8<h1>ar</h1>
9<h4 align="right">create and maintain library archives</h4>
10
11<h2>Synopsis</h2>
12
13<pre>
14ar [-][dprtx][cuv] <i>archive</i> [<i>file</i> ...]
15</pre>
16
17<h2>Options</h2>
18
19<table>
20<tr>
21 <td valign="top"><b>-</b></td>
22 <td valign="top">
23 The <b>-</b> is optional for introducing <tt>ar</tt> command-line
24 arguments; this is a POSIX requirement, and I've never seen anyone
25 use it.</td>
26</tr>
27
28<tr>
29 <td valign="top"><b>c</b></td>
30 <td valign="top">
31 Don't print a diagnostic message to <i>stderr</i> when
32 <i>archive</i> is created.</td>
33</tr>
34
35<tr>
36 <td valign="top"><b>d</b></td>
37 <td valign="top">
38 Delete <i>file(s)</i> from <i>archive</i>.</td>
39</tr>
40
41<tr>
42 <td valign="top"><b>p</b></td>
43 <td valign="top">
44 Write the contents of the named <i>file(s)</i> to <i>stdout</i>.
45 If no <i>file(s)</i> are specified, all of the files in
46 <i>archive</i> are written in the order of the archive.</td>
47</tr>
48
49<tr>
50 <td valign="top"><b>r</b></td>
51 <td valign="top">
52 Replace or add <i>file(s)</i> to the <i>archive</i>. This will
53 create <i>archive</i> if it doesn't already exist.</td>
54</tr>
55
56<tr>
57 <td valign="top"><b>t</b></td>
58 <td valign="top">
59 Write the table of contents of <i>archive</i> to <i>stdout</i>.
60 If not <i>file(s)</i> are specified, list all of the files,
61 otherwise only list the specified files.</td>
62</tr>
63
64<tr>
65 <td valign="top"><b>u</b></td>
66 <td valign="top">
67 Update older files. When used with the <b>r</b> option, files
68 within the archive are only replaced if <i>file</i> has a
69 modification date at least as new as the <i>file</i> already in
70 the archive.</td>
71</tr>
72
73<tr>
74 <td valign="top"><b>v</b></td>
75 <td valign="top">Give verbose output.</td>
76</tr>
77
78<tr>
79 <td valign="top"><b>x</b></td>
80 <td valign="top">
81 Extract <i>file(s)</i> from the <i>archive</i>. If no
82 <i>file(s)</i> are specified, all of the files in <i>archive</i>
83 are extracted.</td>
84</tr>
85
86<tr>
87 <td valign="top"><i>archive</i></td>
88 <td valign="top">
89 The pathname of an archive file.</td>
90</tr>
91
92<tr>
93 <td valign="top"><i>file</i></td>
94 <td valign="top">
95 One more more pathnames of object files; only the file name is
96 used when comparing against the names of files in the
97 archive.</td>
98</tr>
99
100</table>
101
102<h2>Description</h2>
103
104<p>The <tt>ar</tt> utility creates and maintains groups of files
105combined into a library. Once a library has been created, you can
106add new files, and extract, delete, or replace existing files.</p>
107
108<h2>Exit status</h2>
109
110<p><tt>ar</tt> exits with one of the following values:</p>
111
112<table>
113<tr><td valign="top">0</td>
114 <td valign="top">Successful completion.</td></tr>
115<tr><td valign="top">&gt; 0</td>
116 <td>An error occurred.</td></tr>
117</table>
118
119<h2>Bugs</h2>
120
121<p>No known bugs, but <em>please</em> read the comments in the code if
122you want to use it in another application.</p>
123
124<h2>Comments</h2>
125
126<p>This is a POSIX 1003.2-1992 based <tt>ar</tt> command; it's not
127100% POSIX 1003.2 because POSIX specifies a file format for
128<tt>ar</tt> archives. The BeOS <tt>ar</tt> produces library files
129compatible (at least in theory <tt>:-)</tt>) with Metrowerks
130CodeWarrior for PowerPC.</p>
131
132<p>This <tt>ar</tt> and its source code were written as a service to
133the Be developer community, to make it easier for us to port UNIX
134applications and libraries. The code was written from scratch, after
135reverse-engineering the Metrowerks library and object file format
136(mostly because the library/object file format documentation was
137incorrect).</p>
138
139<p>If you find this useful, please
140<a href="mailto:chrish@kagi.com">let me know</a>, and tell me what
141you're working on. Be sure to include a URL for your homepage or your
142product homepages for my
143<a href="http://www.qnx.com/~chrish/Be/community/">Be Community</a>
144pages.</p>
145
146<p>If you find any bugs, please try to fix them, and send me a context
147diff (use <tt>diff -c original_file fixed_file</tt>) so I can include
148your fixes in the next update. I <i>have</i> tested this, but these
149things have a way of slipping though.</p>
150
151<p>If you'd like to know what other things I'm working on, take a look
152at my <a href="http://www.qnx.com/~chrish/Be/software/">Be
153Software</a> pages, and my
154<a href="http://www.qnx.com/~chrish/Be/">Be Happy!</a> pages.</p>
155
156<h2>License</h2>
157
158<p>This program binary and its source code have been donated to the
159BeOS Developer Community by Arcane Dragon Software free of charge.
160You can do whatever you want with it.</p>
161
162<p>If you <em>really</em> want to show your appreciation, you could
163always send me a gift of some sort; cool software you wrote, nice
164pictures for my desktop, ZIP drive disks, RAM, hard drives, post
165cards, a pointer to a really cool/useful/interesting web site,
166an MPEG audio file of an interesting band (make sure you can give me
167enough information to track down their CDs if I like it!), <i>etc.</i>
168Send me some <a href="mailto:chrish@kagi.com">email</a> and I'll let you
169know where to send it.</p>
170
171<p>But you don't have to do anything. Just write good BeOS software.
172But you're already doing that, right?</p>
173
174<h2>Disclaimer</h2>
175
176<p>You use this at your own risk. I've tried to ensure that the code
177is correct, but software usually has bugs. If <tt>ar</tt> destroys
178your valuable data, formats your hard drive, kicks your cat, and lets
179the air out of your tires, I'm not responsible for it. The code is
180here, so you should feel fairly safe that there's nothing evil going
181on.</p>
182
183<p>And, as I learned once again in December 1997, you really should
184keep backups of everything. I only lost a day's work, but it was
185still annoying, and it could've been much, much worse.</p>
186
187<h3>A word about the code</h3>
188
189<p>This code isn't meant to be the ultimate in efficiency or speed,
190it's intended to be fairly easy to understand and maintain
191(hopefully). I was also quite keen on having something that was
192correct, without jumping through a lot of unnecessary hoops.</p>
193
194<p>If you think this code sucks, don't use it. You're already applying
195this to your choice of operating system! <tt>:-)</tt></p>
196
197<h2>Versions</h2>
198
199<dl compact>
200
201<dt><strong>1.1 (April 18, 1998)</strong></dt>
202<dd>Changes include:
203 <ul>
204 <li>Extract option (<b>x</b>) will preserve a file's mode bits
205 when overwriting an existing file (this may go away if it's
206 not POSIX behaviour).</li>
207
208 <li>Extracted files will now have the proper file type.</li>
209
210 <li>Removed attempt to use <i>umask()</i> to set newly created
211 archive's mode bits; apparently, I'm not sure how it
212 works and my POSIX manual isn't helping.</li>
213
214 <li>Should be 100% endian-neutral now; using this on BeOS for
215 x86 is only useful if you're manipulating <em>PowerPC</em>
216 objects though. The <tt>ar</tt> in
217 <a href="http://www.ninemoons.com/GG/index.html">GeekGadgets</a>
218 should work fine for x86 objects/libraries.</li>
219
220 <li>Updated the <tt>README.txt</tt> file; now it's got useful
221 information about building/using the POSIX ar.</li>
222 </ul></dd>
223
224<dt><strong>1.0 (January 13, 1998)</strong></dt>
225<dd>Initial release.</dd>
226
227</dl>
228
229<hr>
230<p>Chris Herborth (<a href="mailto:chrish@qnx.com">chrish@qnx.com</a>)</p>
231<!-- hhmts start -->
232Last modified: $Date$
233<!-- hhmts end -->
234</body> </html>