1XAR(1) User Commands XAR(1)
2
6 xar - eXtensible ARchiver
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9 xar -[ctx][v] ...
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12 The XAR project aims to provide an easily extensible archive format.
13 Important design decisions include an easily extensible XML table of
14 contents (TOC) for random access to archived files, storing the TOC at
15 the beginning of the archive to allow for efficient handling of
16 streamed archives, the ability to handle files of arbitrarily large
17 sizes, the ability to choose independent encodings for individual files
18 in the archive, the ability to store checksums for individual files in
19 both compressed and uncompressed form, and the ability to query the ta‐
20 ble of content's rich meta-data.
21
23 One of the following options must be used:
24 -c Creates an archive
26 -t Lists the contents of an archive
28 -x Extracts an archive
30 NOTE: all of the above require the use of the -f option (filename) as
32 this release of xar doesn't correctly handle pipes or sockets.
33 -f The filename to use for creation, listing or extraction. With
35 extraction, this can be a POSIX regular expression.
36
38 --compression
39 Specifies the compression type to use. Valid values: none,
40 gzip, bzip2, lzma (on some systems). Default value: gzip
41 -C <path>
43 On extract, xar will chdir to the specified path before extract‐
44 ing the archive.
45 -a Synonym for --compression=lzma
47 -j Synonym for --compression=bzip2
49 -z Synonym for --compression=gzip
51 --compression-args=<arguments>
53 Specifies arguments to the compression engine selected. gzip,
54 bzip2, and lzma all take a single integer argument between 0 and
55 9 specifying the compression level to use.
56 --dump-toc=<filename>
58 Has xar dump the xml header into the specified file. "-" can be
59 specified to mean stdout.
60 --dump-toc-cksum
62 Dumps the ToC checksum to stdout along with the algorithm of the
63 ToC.
64 --dump-header
66 Has xar print out the xar binary header information to stdout.
67 --extract-subdoc=<name>
69 Extracts the specified subdocument to a document in cwd named
70 <name>.xml
71 --list-subdocs
73 List the subdocuments in the xml header
74 --toc-cksum
76 Specifies the hashing algorithm to use for xml header verifica‐
77 tion. Valid values: md5 (on some systems), sha1, sha256, and
78 sha512. Default value: sha1
79 --file-cksum
81 Specifies the hashing algorithm to use for file content verifi‐
82 cation. Valid values: md5 (on some systems), sha1, sha256, and
83 sha512. Default value: sha1
84 -l On archival, stay on the local device.
86 -P On extract, set ownership based on uid/gid. If the uid/gid can
88 be set on the extracted file, setuid/setgid bits will also be
89 preserved.
90 -p On extract, set ownership based on symbolic names, if possible.
92 If the uid/gid can be set on the extracted file, setuid/setgid
93 bits will also be preserved.
94 -s <filename>
96 On extract, specifies the file to extract subdocuments to. On
97 archival, specifies an xml file to add as a subdocument.
98 -v Verbose output
100 --exclude
102 Specifies a POSIX regular expression of files to exclude from
103 adding to the archive during creation or from being extracted
104 during extraction. This option can be specified multiple times.
105 --rsize
107 Specifies a size (in bytes) for the internal libxar read buffer
108 while performing I/O.
109 --coalesce-heap
111 When multiple files in the archive are identical, only store one
112 copy of the data in the heap. This creates smaller archives,
113 but the archives created are not streamable.
114 --link-same
116 When the data section of multiple files are identical, hardlink
117 them within the archive.
118 --no-compress
120 Specifies a POSIX regular expression of files to archive, but
121 not compress. The archived files will be copied raw into the
122 archive. This can be used to exclude already gzipped files from
123 being gzipped during the archival process.
124 --prop-include
126 Specifies a file property to be included in the archive. When
127 this option is specified, only the specified options will be
128 included. Anything not specifically included with this option
129 will be omitted. This option can be used multiple times.
130 --prop-exclude
132 Specifies a file property to be excluded from the archive. When
133 this option is specified, all file properties will be included
134 except the specified properties. This option can be used multi‐
135 ple times.
136 --distribution
138 Creates an archive to only contain file properties safe for file
139 distribution. Currently, only name, type, mode, and data are
140 preserved with this option.
141 --keep-existing
143 Does not overwrite existing files during extraction. Keeps any
144 previously existing files while extracting.
145 -k Synonym for --keep-existing.
147 --keep-setuid
149 When extracting without -p or -P options, xar will extract files
150 as the uid/gid of the extracting process. In this situation,
151 xar will strip setuid/setgid bits from the extracted files for
152 security reasons. --keep-setuid will preserve the setuid/setgid
153 bits even though the uid/gid of the extracted file is not the
154 same as the archived file.
155
157 xar -cf sample.xar /home/uid
158 Create a xar archive of all files in /home/uid
159 xar -tf sample.xar
161 List the contents of the xar archive sample.xar
162 xar -xf sample.xar
164 Extract the contents of sample.xar to the current working direc‐
165 tory
166
168 Doesn't currently work with pipes or streams. Might be fixed in a
169 future release.
170 Probably one or two more somewhere in there. If you find one please
172 report it to http://code.google.com/p/xar/
173
175 Rob Braun <bbraun AT synack DOT net>
176 Landon Fuller <landonf AT bikemonkey DOT org>
177 David Leimbach
178 Kevin Van Vechten
179version 1.8 June 4, 2015 XAR(1)