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$FreeBSD: head/share/man/man5/ar.5 206622 2010-04-14 19:08:06Z uqs $

.Dd September 7, 2007 .Dt AR 5 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm ar .Nd format of archives managed by ar(1) and ranlib(1) .Sh SYNOPSIS n ar.h .Sh DESCRIPTION An archive managed by the .Xr ar 1 and .Xr ranlib 1 utilities is a single file that stores the individual members of the archive along with metadata for each member. There are two major variants of the .Xr ar 1 archive format, the BSD variant and the SVR4/GNU variant. Both variants are described by this manual page.

p The header file n ar.h defines constants and structures used to describe the layout of these archives. .Ss Archive Layout .Xr ar 1 archives start with a string of magic bytes .Qq !<arch>\en (constant .Dv ARMAG in header n ar.h ) . The content of the archive follows the magic bytes. Each member stored in the archive is preceded by a fixed size archive header that stores file permissions, last modification time, the owner, and the group of the archived file.

p Archive headers start at an even byte offset in the archive file. If the length of the preceding archive member was odd, then an extra newline character .Dq "\en" is used as padding.

p The archive header comprises six fixed-size ASCII strings followed by a two character trailer (see .Vt "struct ar_hdr" in header file n ar.h Ns ): d -literal struct ar_hdr { char ar_name[16]; /* name */ char ar_date[12]; /* modification time */ char ar_uid[6]; /* user id */ char ar_gid[6]; /* group id */ char ar_mode[8]; /* octal file permissions */ char ar_size[10]; /* size in bytes */ char ar_fmag[2]; /* consistency check */ }; .Ed

p Unused characters in the header are filled with space (ASCII 20H) characters. Each field of the header abuts the next without additional padding.

p The members of the archive header are as follows: l -tag -width "Va ar_name" -compact t Va ar_date This field holds the decimal representation of the modification time, in seconds since the epoch, of the archive member. t Va ar_fmag This trailer field holds the two characters .Qq `\en (constant .Dv ARFMAG defined in header file n ar.h Ns ), and is used for consistency checks. t Va ar_gid This field holds the decimal representation of the numeric user id of the creator of the member. t Va ar_mode This field holds octal representation of the file permissions for the member. t Va ar_name This field holds the name of an archive member. The usage of this field depends on the format variant: l -tag -width "SVR4/GNU" -compact t BSD In the BSD variant, names that are shorter than 16 characters and without embedded spaces are stored directly in this field. If a name has an embedded space, or if it is longer than 16 characters, then the string .Qq "#1/" followed by the decimal representation of the length of the file name is placed in this field. The actual file name is stored immediately after the archive header. The content of the archive member follows the file name. The .Va ar_size field of the header (see below) will then hold the sum of the size of the file name and the size of the member. t SVR4/GNU In the SVR4/GNU variant, names up to 15 characters in length are stored directly in this field, and are terminated by a .Qq / (ASCII 2FH) character. Names larger than 15 characters in length are stored in a special archive string table member (see .Sx "Archive String Table" below), and the .Va ar_name field holds the string .Qq "/" followed by the decimal representation of the offset in the archive string table of the actual name. .El t Va ar_size In the SVR4/GNU variant, this field holds the decimal representation of actual size in bytes of the archived file. In the BSD variant, for member names that use the .Va ar_name field directly, this field holds the decimal representation of the actual size in bytes of the archived member. For member names that use the extension mechanism described above, the field will hold the sum of the sizes, in bytes, of the filename and the archive member. t Va ar_uid This field holds the decimal representation of the numeric group id of the creator of the member. .El .Ss Archive Symbol Table An archive may additionally contain an archive symbol table used by the link editor, .Xr ld 1 . This symbol table has the member name .Qq __.SYMDEF in the BSD variant of the archive format, and the name .Qq / in the SVR4/GNU variant.

p The format of the symbol table depends on the format variant: l -tag -width "SVR4/GNU" -compact t BSD In the BSD variant, the symbol table has 4 parts encoded in a machine dependent manner: l -enum -compact t The first part is a binary value containing size in bytes of the second part encoded as a C .Dq long . t The second part is a list of .Vt struct ranlib structures (see n ranlib.h Ns ). Each ranlib structure describes one symbol and comprises of two C .Dq long values. The first .Dq long is a zero-based offset into the string table in the fourth part for the symbol's name. The second .Dq long is an offset from the beginning of the archive to the start of the archive header for the member that defines the symbol. t The third part is a binary value denoting the length of the string table contained in the fourth part. t The fourth part is a string table containing NUL-terminated strings. .El t SVR4/GNU In the SVR4/GNU variant, the symbol table comprises of three parts which follow each other without padding: l -enum -compact t The first part comprises of a count of entries in the symbol table, stored a 4 byte binary value in MSB first order. t The next part is an array of 4 byte file offsets within the archive to archive header for members that define the symbol in question. Each offset in stored in MSB first order. t The third part is a string table, that contains NUL-terminated strings for the symbols in the symbol table. .El .El .Ss Archive String Table In the SVR4/GNU variant of the .Xr ar 1 archive format, long file names are stored in a separate archive string table and referenced from the archive header for each member. Each file name is terminated by the string .Qq /\en . The string table itself has a name of .Qq // . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr ar 1 , .Xr ranlib 1 , .Xr archive 3 , .Xr elf 3 , .Xr gelf 3 , .Xr elf 5