Manual Pages  — AR

ar, ranlib – manage archives

SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS MRI Librarian Commands EXAMPLES DIAGNOSTICS SEE ALSO STANDARDS COMPLIANCE HISTORY

ar -d [-T] [-f] [-j] [-v] [-z] archive file ...
ar -m [-T] [-a position-after] [-b position-before] [-f] [-i position-before] [-j] [-s | -S] [-z] archive file ...
ar -p [-T] [-f] [-v] archive [file ...]
ar -q [-T] [-c] [-D] [-f] [-s | -S] [-U] [-v] [-z] archive file ...
ar -r [-T] [-a position-after] [-b position-before] [-c] [-D] [-f] [-i position-before] [-j] [-s | -S] [-u] [-U] [-v] [-z] archive file ...
ar -s [-j] [-z] archive
ar -t [-f] [-T] [-v] archive [file ...]
ar -x [-C] [-T] [-f] [-o] [-u] [-v] archive [file ...]
ar -M
ranlib [-D] [-U] archive ...

The ar utility supports the following options:

-a member-after
	When used with option -m this option specifies that the archive members specified by arguments file ... are moved to after the archive member named by argument member-after. When used with option -r this option specifies that the files specified by arguments file ... are added after the archive member named by argument member-after.
-b member-before
	When used with option -m this option specifies that the archive members specified by arguments file ... are moved to before the archive member named by argument member-before. When used with option -r this option specifies that the files specified by arguments file ... are added before the archive member named by argument member-before.
-c
	Suppress the informational message printed when a new archive is created using the -r and -q options.
-C
	Prevent extracted files from replacing like-named files in the file system.
-d
	Delete the members named by arguments file ... from the archive specified by argument archive. The archive's symbol table, if present, is updated to reflect the new contents of the archive.
-D
	When used in combination with the -r or -q option, with the -s option without other options, or when invoked as ranlib, insert 0's instead of the real mtime, uid and gid values and 0644 instead of file mode from the members named by arguments . This ensures that checksums on the resulting archives are reproducible when member contents are identical. This option is enabled by default. If multiple -D and -U options are specified on the command line, the final one takes precedence.
-f
	Use only the first fifteen characters of the archive member name or command line file name argument when naming archive members.
-i member-before
	Synonymous with option -b.
-j
	This option is accepted but ignored.
-l
	This option is accepted for compatibility with GNU ar(1), but is ignored.
-m
	Move archive members specified by arguments file ... within the archive. If a position has been specified by one of the -a, -b or -i options, the members are moved to before or after the specified position. If no position has been specified, the specified members are moved to the end of the archive. If the archive has a symbol table, it is updated to reflect the new contents of the archive.
-M
	Read and execute MRI librarian commands from standard input. The commands understood by the ar utility are described in the section MRI Librarian Commands.
-o
	Preserve the original modification times of members when extracting them.
-p
	Write the contents of the specified archive members named by arguments file ... to standard output. If no members were specified, the contents of all the files in the archive are written in the order they appear in the archive.
-q
	Append the files specified by arguments file ... to the archive specified by argument archive without checking if the files already exist in the archive. The archive symbol table will be updated as needed. If the file specified by the argument archive does not already exist, a new archive will be created.
-r
	Replace (add) the files specified by arguments file ... in the archive specified by argument archive, creating the archive if necessary. Replacing existing members will not change the order of members within the archive. If a file named in arguments file ... does not exist, existing members in the archive that match that name are not changed. New files are added to the end of the archive unless one of the positioning options -a, -b or -i is specified. The archive symbol table, if it exists, is updated to reflect the new state of the archive.
-s
	Add an archive symbol table (see ar(5)) to the archive specified by argument archive. Invoking ar with the -s option alone is equivalent to invoking ranlib.
-S
	Do not generate an archive symbol table.
-t
	List the files specified by arguments file ... in the order in which they appear in the archive, one per line. If no files are specified, all files in the archive are listed.
-T
	Deprecated alias for -f. In other implementations of ar, -T creates a "thin" archive.
-u
	Conditionally update the archive or extract members. When used with the -r option, files named by arguments file ... will be replaced in the archive if they are newer than their archived versions. When used with the -x option, the members specified by arguments file ... will be extracted only if they are newer than the corresponding files in the file system.
-U
	When used in combination with the -r or -q option, insert the real mtime, uid and gid, and file mode values from the members named by arguments . If multiple -D and -U options are specified on the command line, the final one takes precedence.
-v
	Provide verbose output. When used with the -d, -m, -q or -x options, ar gives a file-by-file description of the archive modification being performed, which 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 archive, or an "r" if the file replaces a file already in the archive. When used with the -p option, the name of the file enclosed in "<" and ">" characters is written to standard output preceded by a single newline character and followed by two newline characters. The contents of the named file follow the file name. When used with the -t option, ar displays eight whitespace separated fields: the file permissions as displayed by strmode(3), decimal user and group IDs separated by a slash ( "/"), the file size in bytes, the file modification time in strftime(3) format "%b %e %H:%M %Y", and the name of the file.
-V
	Print a version string and exit.
-x
	Extract archive members specified by arguments file ... into the current directory. If no members have been specified, extract all members of the archive. If the file corresponding to an extracted member does not exist it will be created. If the file corresponding to an extracted member does exist, its owner and group will not be changed while its contents will be overwritten and its permissions will set to that entered in the archive. The file's access and modification time would be that of the time of extraction unless the -o option was specified.
-z
	This option is accepted but ignored.

If the -M option is specified, the ar utility will read and execute commands from its standard input. If standard input is a terminal, the ar utility will display the prompt "AR >" before reading a line, and will continue operation even if errors are encountered. If standard input is not a terminal, the ar utility will not display a prompt and will terminate execution on encountering an error.

Each input line contains a single command. Words in an input line are separated by whitespace characters. The first word of the line is the command, the remaining words are the arguments to the command. The command word may be specified in either case. Arguments may be separated by commas or blanks.

Empty lines are allowed and are ignored. Long lines are continued by ending them with the "+" character.

The "*" and "amp;;" characters start a comment. Comments extend till the end of the line.

When executing an MRI librarian script the ar utility works on a temporary copy of an archive. Changes to the copy are made permanent using the save command.

Commands understood by the ar utility are:

addlib archive | addlib archive (member [, member ]...)
	Add the contents of the archive named by argument archive to the current archive. If specific members are named using the arguments member, then those members are added to the current archive. If no members are specified, the entire contents of the archive are added to the current archive.
addmod member [, member ]...
	Add the files named by arguments member to the current archive.
clear	Discard all the contents of the current archive.
create archive
	Create a new archive named by the argument archive, and makes it the current archive. If the named archive already exists, it will be overwritten when the save command is issued.
delete module [, member ]...
	Delete the modules named by the arguments member from the current archive.
directory archive (member [, member ]... )[outputfile]
	List each named module in the archive. The format of the output depends on the verbosity setting set using the verbose command. Output is sent to standard output, or to the file specified by argument outputfile.
end	Exit successfully from the ar utility. Any unsaved changes to the current archive will be discarded.
extract member [, member ]...
	Extract the members named by the arguments member from the current archive.
list	Display the contents of the current archive in verbose style.
open archive
	Open the archive named by argument archive and make it the current archive.
replace member [, member ]...
	Replace named members in the current archive with the files specified by arguments member. The files must be present in the current directory and the named modules must already exist in the current archive.
save	Commit all changes to the current archive.
verbose
	Toggle the verbosity of the directory command.

To create a new archive ex.a containing three files ex1.o, ex2.o and ex3.o, use:

    ar -rc ex.a ex1.o ex2.o ex3.o

To add an archive symbol table to an existing archive ex.a, use:

    ar -s ex.a

To delete file ex1.o from archive ex.a, use:

To verbosely list the contents of archive ex.a, use:

To create a new archive ex.a containing the files ex1.o, and ex2.o, using MRI librarian commands, use the following script:

create ex.a              * specify the output archive
addmod ex1.o ex2.o       * add modules
save                     * save pending changes
end                      * exit the utility

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

The ar utility's support for the -a, -b, -c, -i, -m, -p, -q, -r, -s, -t, -u, -v, -C and -T options is believed to be compliant with IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2").

An ar command first appeared in AT&T UNIX Version 1. In FreeBSD 8.0, Kai Wang <Mt kaiw@FreeBSD.org> reimplemented ar and ranlib using the Reading and Writing Streaming Archives Library (libarchive, -larchive)and the ELF Access Library (libelf, -lelf)