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AR(1)									 AR(1)


NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     ar	- archive and library maintainer

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     ar	-d [-lv] archive file ...
     ar	-m [-lv] [-abi]	[posname] archive file ...
     ar	-p [-ls]  archive [file	...]
     ar	-q [-clzf]  archive file ...
     ar	-r [-cuvsfl] [-abi] [posname] archive file ...
     ar	-t [-vs] archive [file ...]
     ar	-x [-vosCT] archive [file ...]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The archiver (ar) maintains groups	of files as a single archive file.
     Generally,	you use	this utility to	create and update library files	that
     the link editor uses; however, you	can use	the archiver for any similar
     purpose.

     This version of ar	produces both 32-bit and 64-bit	archives.  The 32-bit
     archive format is defined in the System V Release 4 ABI.  The 64-bit
     archive format is defined in the 64-bit ELF OBJECT	File Specification.
     32-bit objects and	64-bit objects cannot be mixed in an archive.  The
     first object determines whether the archive will be 32-bit	or 64-bit, if
     the archive does not exist	to begin with.	In compilers of	version	7.x
     and higher, the archiver also archives WHIRL objects.  Mixing is allowed
     between 32-bit relocatable	ELF objects and	32-bit WHIRL objects, and
     between 64-bit relocatable	ELF objects and	64-bit WHIRL objects.
     Different versions	of WHIRL objects are NOT mixable.

     If	the environment	variable _XPG is defined, ar operates in conformance
     with the X/Open XPG4 specifications.  The format of the output may	differ
     in	accordance to the XPG4 standards.  Changes are either in the exit
     status or the format of the output.

     Any option	that changes an	object library causes the archive-symbol-table
     to	be updated.  This makes	adding one file	at a time to a library very
     slow.

     Useless options (such as using option -u with option -t) are not
     diagnosed.	 NOTE: ar uses a portable ASCII-format archive that you	can
     use on various machines that run UNIX.

     Options are documented here with a	leading	hyphen(-) form.	 An older form
     with all option letters together and no leading hyphen is still
     supported.	 The first example below shows the old form.

     Examples:
     ar	cr lib.a a.o b.o
     ar	-c -r lib.a a.o	b.o
     ar	-cr lib.a a.o b.o





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AR(1)									 AR(1)



     Options are:

     -a	  Position new files in	the archive after the file named by the
	  posname operand.  Use	this suboption with the	m or r options.

     -b	  Position new files in	the archive before the file named by the
	  posname operand.  Use	this suboption with the	m or r options.

     -c	  Suppress the normal message that the archiver	prints when it creates
	  the archive file archive. Normally, the archiver creates the
	  specified archiver file when it needs	to.

     -C	  Prevent extracted files from replacing like-named files in the file
	  system.  This	option is useful when -T is also used, to prevent
	  truncated names from replacing files with the	same prefix.

     -d	  Delete the specified files from archive.

     -i	  Position new files in	the archive before the file named by the
	  posname operand (equivalent to -b).  Use this	suboption with the -m
	  or -r	options.

     -f	  Adds padding to the end of each object file archived,	using the
	  character '\0'.  This	enables	the loader (ld)	to have	faster access
	  to members in	the archive while performing static linking. Warning:
	  this option results in the change in size of files permanently,
	  normally increased by	1 to 15	bytes.	In compiler releases 7.1 and
	  higher, this option is the default.

     -l	  Puts temporary files in the local directory. If option -l is not
	  supplied and the environment variable	TMPDIR is defined then
	  TMPDIR's value is used as the	name of	the directory for temporary
	  files.  If neither option -l nor TMPDIR is supplied, the archiver
	  puts its temporary files in the directory /tmp.

     -m	  Moves	the specified files to the end of the archive.	If you specify
	  a positioning	character, you must also specify the posname (as in
	  option -r) to	tell the archiver where	to move	the files.

     -o	  Force	each newly created file	to have	the `last modified' date that
	  it had before	it was extracted from the archive.

     -p	  Prints the contents of the files from	archive	to the standard
	  output.  If no files are specified, the contents of all files	in the
	  archive will be written in the order of the archive.

     -q	  Append the specified files to	the end	of the archive file.  The
	  archiver does	not accept suboption positioning characters with the
	  -q option.  It also does not check whether the files you want	to add
	  already exist	in the archive.	 This is useful	to bypass the
	  searching otherwise done when	creating a large archive piece by
	  piece.  Since	the archive-symbol-table of an object library is



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AR(1)									 AR(1)



	  updated with -q it is	advisable to add as many files as possible in
	  one execution	of ar.	Only -qz (see -z below)	avoids quadratic
	  behavior when	creating a large object	archive	piece by piece.

     -r	  Replace or add files to archive.  If the archive named by archive
	  does not exist, a new	archive	file will be created and a diagnostic
	  message will be written to standard error (unless the	-c option is
	  specified).  If no files are specified and the archive exists,
	  nothing is done.  Files that replace existing	files will not change
	  the order of the archive.  If	you use	the suboption -u with -r, the
	  archiver only	replaces those files that have `last-modified' dates
	  later	than the archive files.	 If you	use a positioning character
	  (from	the set	abi) you must specify the posname argument to tell the
	  archiver to put the new files	after (a) or before (b or i).
	  Otherwise, the archiver puts new files at the	end of the archive.

     -s	  Makes	an archive-symbol-table	file in	the archive.  The -s option is
	  automatically	added when any of the options -d, -m, or -r is
	  requested.

	  If you specify -s, the archiver creates the archive-symbol-table
	  file as its last action before finishing execution.  You must
	  specify at least one other archive option (m,	p, d, r, or t) when
	  you use the -s option.

     -t	  Write	a table	of contents for	the files in archive to	the standard
	  output.  If you don't	specify	any file names,	write a	table of
	  contents for all files in the	order of the archave.  If you specify
	  file names, the archiver writes a table of contents only for those
	  files.

     -T	  Allow	filename truncation of extracted files whose archive names are
	  longer than the file system can support.  By default,	extracting a
	  file with a name that	is too long is an error; a diagnostic message
	  will be written and the file will not	be extracted.

     -u	  Update older files.  When used with the -r option, files within the
	  archive will be replaced only	if the corresponding file is newer
	  than the existing archive file. This option uses the UNIX system
	  `last-modified' date for this	comparison. -u gives no	warning	when
	  replacement is refused.

     -v	  Gives	a verbose file-by-file description as the archiver makes a new
	  archive file from an old archive and its constituent files.  When
	  you use this option with -t, the archiver lists, on standard output,
	  all information about	the files in the archive.  When	you use	this
	  option with -p, the archiver writes the name of the file to standard
	  output before	writing	the file itself	to standard output.  If	you
	  add a	second -v additional informational messages can	appear.






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AR(1)									 AR(1)



     -x	  Extract the files named by the file operands from the	archive.  The
	  contents of the archive file will not	be changed.  If	you don't
	  specify any file names, the archiver extracts	all files.  Normally,
	  the `last-modified' date for each extracted file shows the date when
	  someone extracted it;	however, when you use -o, the archiver resets
	  the `last-modified' date to the date recorded	in the archive.

     -z	  Only be useful with -q.  -qz supresses updating of the archivesymbol-table
 and updates the archive in-place.  The resulting
	  archive cannot be used with ld (and is not a System V	Release	4 ABI
	  compliant archive) until an archive-symbol-table update is done.
	  ld(1)	will fail with a message suggesting use	of ar -ts if the last
	  change to the	archive	uses -qz:  Use of -qz is discouraged: the
	  updates are not checked for duplications and in case of a file or
	  other	error the archive may be destroyed.  If	any file name added is
	  longer than 15 characters, line qz updates the archive-symbol-table
	  even with -qz.  If all file names added with qz on a particular
	  execution are	15 characters or less the archive-symbol-table update
	  is suppressed	(even if some file names already in the	archive	are
	  longer than 15 characters).  x option.

FILES    [Toc]    [Back]

     /tmp/ar.tmp.v* or TMPDIR/ar.tmp.v*	temporaries

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

      
      
     lorder(1),	ld(1), ar(4)

     System V Application Binary Interface, ISBN 0-13-877598-2,	Prentice Hall

NOTES    [Toc]    [Back]

     There is no ranlib	program	in IRIX.  Option -s creates the	archivesymbol-table
 ld uses.

     Options -r, -d, -m, and -q	imply option -s.  Since	option -s creates an
     archive-symbol-table, creating an object library by executing ar once per
     object file will be very slow.  Creating an object	library	with a single
     execution of ar is	much faster.

DIAGNOSTICS    [Toc]    [Back]

     xxxxx not found
	  The file xxxxx was not found in the archive.	It could mean a	simple
	  misspelling, but it could also mean that you supplied	xxxxx more
	  than the number of times xxxxx appears in the	archive!  Files	not
	  found	change the exit	code from ar but any attempted update of the
	  archive (by option r for example) is not suppressed.

     not in archive format
	     You probably forgot to specify the	archive	name in	the command.
	     The archive mentioned in the synopsis should be the archive name.






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AR(1)									 AR(1)



     The diagnostics "s	- creating Symbol hash table" and "s - done" are no
     longer emitted when -v is used (to	make the -v output standardconforming).
  If you really want to see those messages, add a second v,
     as	in -vv.

MORE NOTES    [Toc]    [Back]

     The behavior documented in	this section is	not guaranteed to remain the
     same across releases.  This section is provided as	help in	case ar	does
     something surprising.

     If	there is only one hard link (ie, at most one non-symbolic-link.	see
     ln(2)) to an archive which	is being updated then an old archive contents
     are replaced by the new contents by rename(2).  Otherwise,	when updating,
     replacement is by copying the new data onto the old file.	If the archive
     is	updated, the replacement archive is built in the same directory	as the
     named archive (after following symbolic links to the location of the
     named archive).

     In	case the copy operation	mentioned above	is interrupted in mid-copy
     (which is normally	not possible) ar will attempt to set the archive
     length to 0 and the modification-date to January 1, 1970 as a hint	that
     the archive is not	usable.

     If	the ar command results in an unchanged archive,	the old	archive	will
     not be replaced.  This is best achieved with, for example,	ar ru lib.a
     x.o; if the named object file is not put into the archive,	the archive is
     not modified.  The	definition of unchanged	is very	conservative:  ar r
     lib.a x.o,	for example,  always changes the archive since x.o is added or
     replaced (even though x.o itself may be unchanged).

     The following is a	sampling of traditional	ar behaviors that you may find
     surprising.

     If	you specify the	same file twice	in an argument list, it	can appear
     twice in the archive file.

     The o option does not change the `last-modified' date of a	file unless
     you own the extracted file	or you are the super-user.

     Trailing slashes are removed from file-path-names.	 Only the final
     component of a file-path-name is recorded in an archive.  For example, in
     /a/b/c/dfile////  the file	searched for is	/a/b/c/dfile and the name
     recorded in the archive is	dfile.

     If	you give ar the	same name twice	in an ar x command the second instance
     of	the name will provoke a	``not found'' message.


									PPPPaaaaggggeeee 5555
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