ar86(1)

💖 ar86 — bestie's guide to archive files 💖

okay so this is the manual page for ar86, section 1 of the General Commands Manual — the lil archive wrangler from the Dev86/ELKS universe. it makes archives, it inspects archives, it edits archives, and it's lowkey iconic at all three. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

ar86 — create, modify, and extract from archive file. that's the whole vibe. no cap.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

ar86 operation archive [file...]

ar86 positional-op member archive [file...]

two moods: either you give it an operation, or you give it a positional operation plus the member it's positioning around. either way the archive comes next, and then optionally a whole list of files. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so the ar86 program is what you use to create, examine and modify archive files that were produced by the Dev86/ELKS toolchain. that's it, that's the job. she's a specialist, not a generalist. periodt.

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

okay so real talk — ar86 requires that the operation you want performed on the archive be specified as the first option. if the operation is a positional one, then the next option has to be the archive member that marks the position. after that comes the archive file name, and then any list of file names. order matters bestie, don't freestyle it 🌈

🎀 Operations 🎀

one of these bad boys gets specified:

• d — delete the listed files from the archive. gone. bye. 💀
• m — move the named files. by default they get moved to the end of the archive, unless a positional modifier is hanging around.
• p — print the contents of archive members to standard out. if you include a file list, only those members get printed. and if the v modifier is present, each file's contents get preceded by a new line, then a line with the string member, a space character, the member name, and two more newlines. very extra, very formatted ✨
• q — quickly add the files to the end of the archive without checking to see if they already exist in the archive. this operation will ignore any positional modifiers, so don't even try it. creates the archive file if it doesn't exist. 🍓
• r — replace archive members with the files listed. if a file name isn't present in the archive, it gets added to the end of the archive (or to any explicitly specified position). creates the archive file if it doesn't exist. the classic 💅
• t — table; list the file names of archive members. if a file list is present, only those files that are actually in the archive get listed. the v modifier prints member attributes. this is the "who's in there" check 👑
• x — extract the named files from the archive into the current directory. if no files are specified, all the archive members get extracted. surprise, it's everyone 🌸

💜 Modifiers 💜

these can be used with the operations:

• o — original time stamps from the archive are preserved for extracted files when possible. nostalgia preservation, love that for us 🕰️
• s — symbol update; this option can be used by itself to force an update to the symbol definition section of the archive (that's the __.SYMDEF member, iykyk). if any files are specified, they get replaced as if the r operation had been specified. if no symbol definition section exists, one gets created. this option will also create the archive file if it does not exist. she does it all 🫶
• u — update files in the archive during an r (replace) operation. the files get added to the archive in exactly the same manner as replace, except that an existing archive member will be retained in its original position if it has a modified more recently than the file being added. heads up though: this modifier acts as if an r operation has been specified (even if it hasn't!), and it will actually override any other previously specified operation. she's bossy like that 😭
• v — verbose; print additional diagnostic messages while processing the archive. the yapper modifier 💬

🌈 Positional Modifiers 🌈

these specify where in the archive files get moved to or added. and listen — if any of these are specified, then the second option to ar86 must be the name of an archive member. no exceptions bestie.

• a — after; files are placed after the specified archive member.
• b — before; files are placed before the specified archive member.
• i — same as b. literally the same. twin behavior 👯

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⭐ EXAMPLES ⭐

to see the contents of an archive:

ar86 tv libfile.a

to add some files to an archive:

ar86 r libfile.a file1.o file2.o

to add some files after a member named mem.o and to update the symbol table:

ar86 rsa mem.o libfile.a file1.o file2.o

look at that stacked modifier action. r, s, and a all in one. ate 💅

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💀 BUGS 💀

a l modifier will be accepted but ignored. she'll take it, she just won't do anything with it. respectfully 🙈

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🧚 RESTRICTIONS 🧚

this command is intended for use only with object files created using the Dev86/ELKS toolchain. don't bring random files to this party, she will not know them. 🎀

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

as86(1), bcc(1), ld86(1) — the rest of the friend group, go say hi 🫶

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🌟 AUTHORS 🌟

© 1988, 1990 Free Software Foundation Inc. Changes for ar86 by Greg Haerr <greg@censoft.com>. legends, honestly 👑

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💖 COPYRIGHT 💖

the manual page was written for Debian GNU/Linux, © 2006 Shyamal Prasad <shyamal@member.fsf.org>. it is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 (or any later version released by the Free Software Foundation). respect the license bestie, it's the law 📜

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and that's the whole page!! this was ar86(1) from the General Commands Manual, dated May, 2006, living in the Dev86/ELKS toolchain corner of the world. go archive something cute. mwah 💋